Training Systems & SOPs
SMART Centre · Immersive Lab Onboarding
The Problem
30–40 new students every term. An onboarding experience built to scale.
At the SMART Centre, each term brings an entirely new cohort of students into a complex, equipment-dense research lab. Training had long been passed down through senior students and mentors, and with each new cohort the opportunity to deliver that knowledge more consistently became clearer.
The same questions surfaced every term, and senior students and researchers spent meaningful time re-explaining the basics. There was a clear opportunity to give every student a strong, consistent starting point and free that time up for the project work the lab is built around.
4
Terms of feedback informing the design
30–40
New students onboarded per term
↓
Repeated safety questions per cohort
100%
Self-paced, no instructor time required
Approach & Implementation
Designing a repeatable onboarding system
01 · Discovery
Four terms of pattern recognition
After gathering feedback from students across four consecutive terms, and seeing the same questions and documentation gaps surface each cohort, a clear opportunity emerged: a structured, repeatable onboarding system that could meet every new student with the same depth from day one.
02 · Research
Looking for an immersive solution
Standard PDF SOPs and slidedecks failed because they were passive and disconnected from the physical space. I evaluated multiple tools before landing on ThingLink, a platform that overlays interactive hotspots onto 3D spatial tours, tying safety information directly to the equipment and areas it applies to.
03 · Implementation
Building the tour and authoring content
I photographed and mapped the full lab environment, structured safety zones, tool inventories, and hazard areas into hotspot categories, and authored the content for each node. The result was a self-paced, always-available 3D walkthrough that students could complete before their first shift.
04 · Iteration
Keeping it current as the space evolves
Labs change. New equipment arrives, layouts shift, procedures update. The tour is treated as a living document, revised each term to reflect the current state of the space. This keeps the training credible and prevents drift between what students learn and what they encounter.
Student Feedback
What students said
Collected anonymously via end-of-onboarding survey.
Very Interactive training and options for the MCQs were fun.
SMART Centre Student
Spring 2025
Want to work together?
I am open to discussing new projects and creative collaborations.