HELPING MEMBERS REGISTER FOR SUCCESS

A look into Leadership for Educational Equity’s registration process and how a fix can fast-track social impact.

Led the redesign of Leadership for Educational Equity’s complex registration flow, transforming a high-friction, failure-prone system into a clear and user-friendly onboarding experience. By removing the outdated “claim your account” model and introducing an immediate-access, tiered service approach, member activation increased, staff workload reduced, and the experience aligned with LEE’s broader digital transformation goals.

 

Workplace

Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE)

Year

2022

Deliverables

Research synthesis

Service Mapping

User flow

Key Takeaways

  • Simplified a complex, failure-prone registration process to increase member activation and engagement.
  • Redesigned service flow to reflect user needs while maintaining backend flexibility.
  • Shifted the UX language from “claiming” to “registering,” aligning expectations and improving clarity.

The Challenge

Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) is a national nonprofit that supports leadership development in education equity across industries. Its services—including career coaching, campaign support, and organizing tools—are available exclusively to eligible members, primarily alumni of partner education organizations.

While LEE offers a rich suite of resources, its digital registration process was a critical point of friction. Most users didn’t create new accounts—instead, they had to “claim” pre-created ones populated from limited partner data (often just an email address). If that data was outdated or users didn’t recall which email they used, they hit a dead end.

This confusion not only caused user frustration and drop-off but also placed an undue burden on staff to manually verify and engage prospective members.

Process

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Research & Mapping the Problem

To understand the complexity, I led a service mapping exercise that captured all touchpoints: user actions, staff interventions, backend processing, and technical workflows. We found:

  • Multiple back-and-forth steps between users and emails.
  • A high failure rate in authenticating eligible members.
  • No fallback for when authentication failed—triggering a manual, time-consuming staff process.
  • A poor mobile experience and significant drop-offs during onboarding.

We discovered two divergent paths: in-person event registrations (which had real-time human validation and fewer issues) and digital self-registration (which often broke due to bad data or unclear UX).

Identifying the Opportunities

Through stakeholder interviews and user journey analysis, we uncovered core opportunities:

  • Reduce drop-off by eliminating the complex “claim your account” concept.

  • Empower users by removing ambiguity and allowing them to start using LEE services immediately.

  • Relieve staff load by reducing manual verifications and follow-ups.

  • Prepare for the future by aligning the onboarding flow with an upcoming redesign of LEE’s member portal.

We also heard from users that once inside the member portal, they weren’t sure what to do next. This led us to see registration not just as a technical hurdle—but as an opportunity to introduce and guide members into LEE’s ecosystem.

Designing a Smarter System

Rather than fix a broken system, we proposed a new model: give every eligible user immediate access to a basic tier of services, without needing authentication up front. Here’s how we addressed the key pain points:

Old Model:

  • The user had to guess the correct email or risk system failure.
  • Authentication is required before accessing anything.
  • Manual staff review if the system failed.

     

New Model:

  • Users register with any email address.
  • Instantly access a set of core resources available to all.
  • Background authentication is handled asynchronously by staff (if needed).
  • Guided onboarding flows to help users explore offerings and understand what’s next.

     

We also proposed a tiered membership system—allowing LEE to distinguish between basic and advanced services based on user engagement, not just identity.

 

Below shows the new user flow.

64123fc4970e0d45e93cae19_Registration Service Map - New Reg Model
641242a5c851e8dac7fdaa50_Registration Service Map - new recruit and reg

The Impact

  • Simplified UX: Reduced the registration process to one clear, accessible step.
  • Increased Activation: Users can now access tools immediately, leading to higher engagement rates.
  • Operational Efficiency: Staff are no longer bottlenecked by the need to verify every registration manually.
  • Strategic Alignment: The new flow supports LEE’s long-term vision for a more dynamic and self-service member portal.

What's Next For LEE

  • Integrate a status tracker for users waiting on advanced data access or verification.
  • Finalize the redesigned service portal to complement the new registration UX.
  • Explore personalized onboarding based on user type (organizer, candidate, educator, etc.).

Bonus

While the process design for the registration is over, I’m still excited to share some first round wireframes. Checkout the preview in the link below.

Figma Link