WGU Duplicate Accounts

Overview

Students were unintentionally creating multiple accounts during registration, leading to duplicate WGU IDs, mismatched profiles, and lost progress. Enrollment Counselors had to spend hours manually merging records, while students were locked out of portals or asked to redo completed work.

User Research

I collaborated with Enrollment Counselors to uncover how duplicates disrupted onboarding. We identified critical cases such as returning graduates, students on term breaks, and those with active accounts in different stages of enrollment.

Process

We designed a familiar security-check style flow to handle duplicate detection. The system would scan for duplicates during registration and guide students with clear options. Special edge cases were addressed to ensure a smooth experience across scenarios.

Solutions

When a duplicate is found, students see a clear prompt: continue with their existing account (default) or continue with a new one. Choosing “continue witn a new application” logs them out and provides instructions to sign back in with the correct profile. Continuing with the existing account lets them resume their application without losing progress.

User Testing

We tested the designs with 32 students. The first version used hyperlinks, which confused nearly half of participants. Switching to button-based prompts made the difference—100% of students understood the flow. Feedback was direct.

“The bigger blue buttons are much faster and easier to understand”

“Option B should be the only option.”

Takeaways

Remebering where you left off on a registration form can be frustrating. Serving up options and having a piece of mind that your account is secured can be more reasurring. The updated flow will prevent duplicate accounts, reduced counselor workload, and improved data consistency across Self Service Enrollment, SRM, and Salesforce.