SLATE VX UX Case Study: Army Virtual Branch Outreach 2.0

Figure 1: The Resource Center of the Army Virtual Branch Outreach serves as a one-stop shop to find all the relevant information, including live event schedule and other valuable resources to guide their decision-making process.

By Yuliya Manyakina, UX Strategist

This post is part two of a three-part series exploring how SLATE Virtual Experience (SLATE VX) leverages user-centered design to create engaging and immersive virtual learning experiences. This article will describe the design process of Army Virtual Branch Outreach – an educational, interactive, 3D platform for cadets planning to enter the U.S. Army. 

The Challenge

On average, the U.S. Army has 10,000 cadets enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at colleges and universities, as well as 1,000 cadets enrolled at the U.S. Army Military Academy (USMA). Before they graduate, cadets must indicate which of the 25 occupational branches of the Army they wish to join to begin their military careers as officers. At times, branches chosen by cadets may not be the best fit for their knowledge, skills, and intelligences.
 
Increasing awareness about branches and improving the officer (commissioned cadet) and branch fit is a top priority for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
 
TRADOC engaged SLATE VX to develop an immersive virtual education experience that would provide cadets with information and resources to guide their initial military career decision.

How might we create an experience that will improve officer and branch talent alignment, thus resulting in retention, job satisfaction, and

a higher performing U.S. Army?
 

The Solution
To address this challenge, the SLATE VX team and TRADOC deployed an engaging, highly organized, and customized virtual education experience that places cadets in an environment with 3D images. The environment, titled Army Virtual Branch Outreach (VBO 2.0), provides a space where cadets can find information on Army branch activities, talent priorities, and required knowledge, skills, behaviors, and intelligences to determine if they are a good fit for any one of the 25 Army branches. The current version of the Army environment also encompasses several important capabilities. cadets can:

• Interact with other participants and branch representatives via chat;
• Attend live outreach sessions held by branches;
• Watch on-demand webinars;
• Complete branch interviews; and
• Find other documents, links and resources relevant to the branching process.

Importantly, the virtual learning environment consolidates all branch information for cadets in one space that has a consistent interface. Previously, TRADOC maintained a website where they posted talent, knowledge, skill, and intelligence requirements for each branch (referred to as VBO 1.0). However, each branch hosted their own events separately using different tools, with no centralized schedule or venue to coordinate outreach to cadets.

“VBO, as a response to the COVID environment last year, has accelerated Officer Branching education and brought it into the digital age […] cadets become empowered to browse, interact, connect, discuss, and take charge of their branching research to make what is arguably one of the most important decisions of their lives to date.” 

John Bessler, TRADOC Officer Accessions Division Chief

The Results
As a result of the first contract year, we:

• Developed 25 highly customized booths using an iterative approach, which allowed the army branches to accurately capture and boast the essence of their unique identity. 3D design for each branch booth took nearly 40 hours to complete, including ideation, multiple rounds of sketches, and 3D building;
• Launched a beta version in production to a user base of 600 cadets in May 2021;
• Successfully hosted nine live event days – six in August and three in October – and grew the VBO 2.0 user base. There are currently more than 4,000 active accounts on VBO 2.0;
• 60% of cadets who attended the live event days agreed with the statement, “The information I learned today will result in my requesting an interview for a branch I would not have otherwise considered.”;
• Increased cadet attendance by 3,000% from August to October. The average number of attendees per day for the AUG live event series was 33, compared to 1,034 for the OCT live events; and
• Using the “Sense and Respond” approach to continuous improvement, we’ve regularly gathered data from interviews and considered outcome metrics, user journey maps, and other feedback from actual product usage to understand, learn from, and implement improvements to VBO 2.0.

What’s Next?

With this foundation in place, based on the Army’s desired outcomes, we created and implemented a metrics monitoring strategy within SLATE VX to analyze event attendance and participation. The next phase of our work will focus on translating feedback from users and the data into actionable platform improvements. The platform will continue to evolve, as will the partnership with U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and SLATE VX.

Keep your eye out for the third part of our series – an interview with Jason Whetsell, SLATE VX Product Manager, about the evolution of SLATE VX.

###