Research Report
Uncovering structural gaps in disadvantage compensation processes across departments to enable a fairer, university-wide system.
This project examined how disadvantage compensation is currently requested, assessed, and implemented across five departments at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Through qualitative UX research, we analysed real-world processes from the perspectives of students, lecturers, programme leads, and administrative staff. The work revealed major inconsistencies, unclear responsibilities, and high coordination effort across departments. Based on these findings, we identified four strategic action fields to support a more transparent, efficient, and equitable handling of disadvantage compensation at a university-wide level.
Role
UX Researcher
Context
Research for the Accessibility Office at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Timeline
14 weeks in 2025
Team
Me & Dario Foti
Outcome
User Research Report & stakeholder presentation
This research was conducted in a confidential, internal university context. To protect participants and institutional processes, concrete cases, quotes, and department-specific details are deliberately abstracted. The case study therefore focuses on research approach, synthesis logic, and organisational insights rather than publishable outputs.
At the University, disadvantage compensation is intended to ensure equal opportunity for students with physical or psychological impairments. This is also anchored in Swiss law: in education contexts, disadvantage is explicitly framed, for example when access to necessary assistive means or personal assistance is hindered, or when the duration and design of educational offers and exams are not adapted to specific needs.
Despite an institutional framework (“barrierefrei”), navigating disadvantage compensation in everyday practice can be challenging when responsibilities, communication, and handovers between roles are interpreted differently across departments.
Because disadvantage compensation touches fairness, trust, and academic performance, even small breakdowns can have impact. Our UX research therefore set out to understand how the process is actually experienced from end to end, across five departments and key stakeholder roles, and to derive improvement opportunities that could work at a university-wide level without ignoring departmental constraints.
Our research focused on five of the University’s six departments. We deliberately excluded the department where the Office for Accessible Studies is located, since that context was already well understood by the partner team. This allowed us to use our limited project resources to study how disadvantage compensation is actually handled across the remaining departments and where the day to day experience diverges.
A key learning early in the fieldwork was where reliable process knowledge sits. We initially assumed the strongest perspective would come from students and lecturers, as they are the most visible parts of the experience. As interviews progressed, we realised that administrative roles often hold the most complete view of dependencies, handovers, and real implementation workarounds. We therefore shifted our interview emphasis towards secretariats and administrative coordination. This gave us a clearer basis for comparing departments and made the process visualisations substantially more accurate.
Instead of treating research as one combined data set, we structured the synthesis into three layers that built on each other.
For each department, we analysed interview input and translated it into an as is flowchart that reflects the lived process, not the official one. We annotated the flows with recurring pains and wishes to pinpoint where friction occurs and which role is affected at each step.
In parallel, we aggregated interview statements by stakeholder group using affinity mapping. This helped us identify consistent jobs, pains, gains, and wishes for students, lecturers, programme leadership, and administration. From this synthesis we created a focused empathy map and a user journey for each stakeholder group to make the experience and its breakdown points easier to communicate.
Finally, we looked across departments to determine which issues were not local exceptions but structural patterns the University could address. This cross department synthesis informed a set of university wide key findings and the action fields in the report.
Administration surfaced hidden complexity
Many breakdowns happen between approval and implementation, where handovers are informal and responsibilities are interpreted differently.
A shared structure enabled comparison without flattening departmental differences.
We used a shared set of phases to make department-specific processes readable side by side, while preserving their actual differences.
Actionability required synthesis, not documentation
The goal was not to publish every detail, but to translate complexity into a small number of patterns stakeholders could act on.
Our goal was to make the lived process of disadvantage compensation understandable and usable beyond the project team. We needed to create a shared baseline for the Office for Accessible Studies and other involved stakeholders, while keeping the work credible through transparent traceability from evidence to conclusions. The outputs were therefore designed as a handover package, not as a documentation archive.
Shared baseline
Enable stakeholders to work from a common understanding of the current process, rather than fragmented assumptions.
Usable at multiple levels
Support department specific work while also making stakeholder needs and university wide patterns visible.
Traceable and credible
Make it clear how conclusions were derived from evidence, so the outputs can be trusted and reused.
Self contained and complete
The research report needed to function on its own, with a clear structure, all essential information, and integrated appendices that allow the work to be understood without additional explanation.
Rather than proposing a single “solution,” the research translated cross department patterns into four action fields. Each field is framed as a lever the University can strengthen, independent of whether the next step becomes policy, process, or tooling.
The research shows a high degree of heterogeneity in how disadvantage compensation is handled across departments. Terminology, responsibilities, communication paths, and implementation practices differ significantly, even though the underlying goal is the same. This lack of standardisation creates uncertainty for students and increases coordination effort for lecturers and administrative staff. The action field focuses on establishing a shared baseline at university level, including clearer role definitions, consistent communication principles, and a common understanding of how disadvantage compensation is applied in practice, while still allowing for department-specific contexts.
Many of the identified challenges are linked to manual, fragmented, and improvised process support. Information is often exchanged via email or spreadsheets, and handovers between roles are not systematically supported. The research highlights that the greatest friction occurs after approval, when measures need to be implemented in concrete teaching and assessment situations. This action field addresses the need for clearer organisational structures and more reliable process support to reduce manual workload, prevent information loss, and improve coordination across roles and departments.
In several departments, disadvantage compensation relies heavily on individual commitment and informal expertise. Administrative staff, lecturers, and programme leads often take on additional responsibilities without sufficient support or guidance. The research indicates that this leads to personal overload and inconsistent handling of cases. This action field focuses on relieving individuals through clearer responsibility models and strengthening competence through access to guidance, knowledge sharing, and targeted support, enabling stakeholders to handle disadvantage compensation more confidently and consistently.
With few exceptions, the research found no systematic monitoring of how disadvantage compensation works over time or whether measures are implemented as intended. Feedback is largely informal and remains local to departments. As a result, recurring issues and successful practices are difficult to identify at university level. This action field addresses the need for structured yet proportionate monitoring and feedback mechanisms that support learning, quality development, and transparency, rather than control.
The project resulted in a structured UX research report designed as a reusable handover. It combined the official process flow based on the University’s “barrierefrei” concept with department level as is flowcharts and stakeholder artefacts. The appendices included an AEIOU analysis, empathy maps, and user journey maps, making the work inspectable and usable beyond the project team.
The handover was delivered through the standalone report and a final stakeholder presentation to the Office for Accessible Studies, including the main responsible person, as well as academic stakeholders from the programme context.
The most meaningful impact occurred after the project concluded. Based on the research, the University created a dedicated role with allocated workload to further develop disadvantage compensation processes. This role uses the research outputs as a working foundation and has already facilitated workshops based on the department flowcharts to support process improvement.
While no quantitative metrics were defined at this stage, the creation of a dedicated role and the continued use of the artefacts represent a concrete organisational response and a credible signal of impact.
Overall, I am very satisfied with how the project turned out. We delivered a research handover that was taken seriously by stakeholders and created a shared foundation to move a complex topic forward. Looking back, the work also made clear where the real effort sits in large scale qualitative research and what I would plan differently next time.
Domain knowledge is part of research readiness
Entering a complex and sensitive domain without prior experience showed me how important thorough preparation is. Understanding the official process was essential to guide interviews confidently, while sensitivity for the topic helped create a respectful and productive conversation setting.
Trust and psychological safety shape data quality
Disadvantage compensation is emotionally charged for both affected students and administrative roles. Framing the research as process improvement rather than individual evaluation helped remove fear and blame. This significantly improved openness and the quality of insights.
Traceability depends on disciplined documentation
Throughout the project, it became clear that documenting the research process in detail is not optional. Careful documentation was essential to later reconstruct decisions, trace insights, and generate credible findings for the research report.
Artefact preparation is a substantial part of the work
We underestimated the effort required to clean up, structure, and prepare research artefacts for handover. Making flowcharts, maps, and analyses readable and reusable took significant time, but proved critical for the usefulness of the final output.
Consolidating complex research into a usable report is hard
Transforming a large and nuanced research body into a report that is both understandable and verifiable required strong structuring decisions. The challenge was to preserve traceability to evidence while still telling a coherent story that stakeholders could follow and act on.
A focused snapshot of the methods behind this project. This condensed Workflow Atlas highlights only the phases and techniques applied here, showing the key artifacts and decisions that shaped the outcome.
