The Challenge: Connecting the Dots
Meet the HR Team at Zipp:
The HR team at Stamp was struggling to understand why employees were leaving.
Exit surveys were meant to provide valuable insights, but most responses were rushed, incomplete, or missing altogether.
The tools felt cold and generic—more of a formality than a conversation. Employees skipped surveys, and the few who completed them offered only surface-level feedback.
ZIPP team goal:
Make the exit survey feel human, not like a checkbox.
Reduce friction so employees could share feedback easily, even on their way out.
Build trust by showing that their voices mattered.
Understanding team ZIPP pain points
To move beyond assumptions, I conducted one-on-one interviews and a group brainstorming session with the HR team, followed by an affinity mapping exercise. These conversations formed the foundation for smarter, more empathetic design decisions.
Applying Human Factors in Exit Survey Design
Offboarding is more than logistical—it’s an emotional transition.
Applying human factors principles, the goal was to align the survey experience with the emotional and cognitive state of departing employees.
1. Last Impressions Matter
Exit surveys are often the final experience employees have with a company. According to the Peak-End Rule, people tend to remember how an experience ends. A thoughtful, emotionally attuned survey can leave a lasting, positive impression that supports the company’s brand.
2. Timing for Emotional Readiness
Surveys were timed for the final week of employment—after some reflection, but before departure—to strike a balance between emotional distance and immediate relevance. This increased the likelihood of honest, meaningful responses.
3. Transparency Builds Trust
Clear messaging addressed employees’ need for clarity and control:
When the survey would be sent
Who would see the responses
How would feedback be used
Understanding the drop off in engagement
To better understand when and why employees drop off the exit survey, I created a journey map based on their emotional and behavioral touchpoints. It helped identify the key moments where UX could reduce friction, build trust, and encourage completion.
Streamlined Survey Structure: Reducing Friction
A decision tree was introduced to guide users through tailored questions based on their responses. This approach reduced redundancy and kept the survey relevant and engaging. It also avoided emotional and cognitive overload.
Testing for Emotional and Cognitive Toll
To understand how real employees might experience the new survey, I conducted user testing with low-fidelity wireframes. This wasn’t just about navigation—it was about emotional resonance. Would employees feel seen? Would the tone build trust?
Observations during testing helped uncover points of confusion, emotional friction, and opportunities to bring warmth into the flow. For example, participants paused longer when faced with formal, detached language, but moved more smoothly through conversational questions that acknowledged their contribution.
Design choices
The visual design emphasizes clarity, accessibility, and professionalism. A blue color palette paired with a clean white background fosters a sense of trust and calm, an important tone for offboarding conversations.
Reinforcing Human Connection Through Gratitude
To bring a more human element into the offboarding experience, we introduced a small but impactful touchpoint: a personalized thank you message sent by HR after an employee completes the exit survey.
This simple gesture acknowledges the employee’s time and feedback, providing emotional closure while reinforcing that their insights were genuinely heard. Rooted in human factors and emotional design, this step helps transform the survey from a transactional task into a meaningful interaction, one that leaves the door open for future engagement and reflects positively on the employer brand.
Closing the feedback loop with individual response
During the brainstorming session with the HR team, a common theme that came up was being able to close the feedback loop. Showing empathy and also gratitude for the feedback.
Giving the HR team a quick way to review and respond will help them close the feedback loop and give the employee a sense of being heard.
To support HR professionals in making informed decisions, we designed a centralized dashboard that transforms raw exit survey responses into actionable insights. The dashboard allows HR to:
Filter feedback by department, tenure, role, or exit type
View individual employee scorecards with satisfaction ratings, reasons for leaving, and key quotes
Identify trends through sentiment analysis and visual indicators
Track completion rates and flag areas with consistently low engagement or recurring concerns
Empowering HR with a Smart Data Dashboard
The goal was to make complex offboarding data digestible and meaningful, giving HR teams the tools they need to identify patterns, respond to issues quickly, and continuously improve the employee experience.
Applying Human Factors: Transparency to Build Trust
Incorporating human factors into our survey design also meant addressing employees’ need for clarity and control. To reduce uncertainty and increase trust, we added clear messaging upfront about:
When the survey would be sent
Who would have access to the responses
How the feedback would be used
By clearly outlining the purpose, timing, and outcome of the survey, we aligned the experience with the employee’s need for psychological safety, a core human factor in honest participation.
