WSIB Innovation Lab

Transforming lecture-based onboarding into a scalable team experience

Looped Video — Final Product

Role

Product Designer

Team

1 Product Manager

3 Designers

5 Developers

Timeline

May – Aug 2025

Context

A new headquarters opened the door to rethink onboarding

WSIB Innovation Lab operates like an internal agency – a fast-moving, cross-functional team that researches, prototypes, and ships solutions for challenges across the organization.

We were approached by the Enterprise Learning Service (ELS) team with a problem: orientation at WSIB was fully virtual and relied heavily on presentations. New hires struggled to stay engaged and facilitators had no real way to gauge participation.

With WSIB opening a new headquarters in London, Ontario, ELS saw the opportunity to move orientation in person and rebuild it from the ground up.

What the Rebuild Had to Deliver

A 45-Minute Experience

Seamlessly integrated into the broader orientation schedule

A Shared Starting Point

Designed for every new hire, regardless of role or department

Consistency at Scale

Suitable for 12–50 participants

A Fast Path to Testing

Pilot-ready in 7 weeks for the next new hire cohort

Approach

A game-based tour, powered by two connected tools

Working closely with ELS, we landed on building an in-house solution – minimizing long-term costs while making it easier for their team to evolve the experience over time.

Vision

Use the new office space as a live game board – getting new hires out of their seats, working together, and learning through play.

Image — New Office

Deliverables

Visual — Icons / Connected System

Key Contributions

Bringing structure to a multi-touchpoint experience

With design and development running in parallel, I helped map the end-to-end experience – aligning digital and physical touchpoints within a shared blueprint.

Service Blueprint — Simplified, happy path only

Turning device limits into an opportunity for collaboration

The blueprint mapped the ideal flow. The challenge was making it work in practice.

With new hires arriving before receiving their corporate phones, we had to decide how teams would engage with the digital side of the experience.

Rather than requiring personal devices for all team members, we designed around one device per team. To make this single-device model work seamlessly, I helped architect a captain system.

Visual of Screens — Captain and Regular Participant

The first person to check in at an activity station submits answers on behalf of the team.

Everyone else can still view questions and answer options on their own device if they choose.

Result

Less hardware needed. More conversation.

Designing for the unexpected in a live setting

Live sessions are inherently unpredictable. I designed for the scenarios facilitators were most likely to encounter, ensuring the experience could adapt without disruption.

Handling Captain Handoff

If a captain needs to step away mid-session, any teammate can check in again to take over submission rights – keeping the team moving without losing progress.

Accounting for Attendance Changes

Teams are generated automatically based on expected headcount, but actual attendance may not match the roster exactly. Automating mid-session reassignments would add unnecessary complexity.

Instead, we kept adjustments manual, allowing facilitators to make quick decisions based on who actually walked through the door – reinforcing our core design principle: technology should support human judgement, not replace it.

Safeguarding Active Runs

Facilitators need confidence that an orientation will run smoothly while it's underway. Once a session goes live, station controls lock automatically to prevent accidental edits.

Facilitators can also send custom notifications to teams as needed, maintaining control without needing to physically reach every team.

Protecting the core experience under a tight timeline

With a 7-week runway to our pilot, we had to make intentional trade-offs. Working with ELS and the broader team, I helped prioritize features that directly supported the core onboarding vision while identifying opportunities for future iterations.

Simplified PRD — Feature, Effort, Impact, Decision

Keeping 3 designers’ work in sync

With 3 designers working simultaneously, inconsistencies crept in – repeated screens, disconnected flows, and gaps that were hard to spot while focused on individual pieces.

I encouraged the team to pause and walk through the end-to-end flow together, catching overlaps and reconciling decisions before progressing further.

This alignment was especially important with developers building alongside us – any gaps we missed could easily become build issues on their end.

Representative Diagram

Solution

The complete experience

New Hire Tool

Video(s) + Brief Captions

Admin Tool

Video(s) + Brief Captions

Outcome

From pilot to adoption

Shipped on schedule for testing and officially launched in late 2025

Supports 500+ annual users across new hires and facilitators

Received company-wide recognition from WSIB’s CTO

Reflection

The work beyond the screens

Going into this project, I expected most of my time to be spent designing screens.

Instead, much of my work happened beyond the canvas – aligning with other designers, collaborating with ELS stakeholders, and identifying gaps before they became larger challenges.

Navigating those moving parts turned out to be what I enjoyed most.

Additional Work

Elsewhere at the Lab

I’m grateful to have spent 2 co-op terms with the WSIB Innovation Lab, shaping a range of initiatives beyond this onboarding experience.

Leading the Creation of an AI Policy Assistant

Owned product management for an AI assistant that gives case managers instant access to critical policy information.

The project earned recognition from WSIB's information and analytics leadership and advanced into full development.

Image / Video Placeholder

Facilitating a Design Thinking Workshop

Led empathy-building and user research exercises for senior leadership, earning 5-star feedback.

Streamlining Power BI Reporting

Conducted user research and analysis to improve report creation workflows and design consistency.