PATH@PENN

Simplifying the Course Registration Process

Role

Full-Stack Designer

Timeline

2023 (5 weeks)

Skills

Product Design

User Research

Prototyping

Drag to see before & after!

01 Overview

The Problem

Path@Penn is a student portal at the University of Pennsylvania. The University Registrar has noticed an increase in help desk requests resulting from students’ inability to find information and complete tasks related to course registration.

Project Goals

Redesign the landing page and the course registration process of Path@Penn to better meet user needs, increase usability, and decrease help desk requests.

02 Research

Usability Audit

I began my research process by conducting a usability audit referencing the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. This exercise helped me identify key usability issues and inform my design decisions.

User Interviews

I conducted user interviews with 4 current Penn students with varying levels of experience with Path@Penn to further identify pain points

Interview Notes / Affinity Mapping

Interview notes / Affinity Map
Interview notes / Affinity Map

Themes

After synthesizing insights from user interviews and the usability audit, I identified these recurring themes

Opportunities

With these insights, I focused on the following questions

  1. How might we make navigation more hassle-free?


  1. How might we make the interface customizable to cater to each individual’s needs?


  1. How might we integrate a waitlist system to deliver a more reliable experience when students register for popular courses?

  1. How might we make navigation more hassle-free?


  1. How might we make the interface customizable to cater to each individual’s needs?


  1. How might we integrate a waitlist system to deliver a more reliable experience when students register for popular courses?

03 Brainstorming Solutions



Iteration #1

Adding visual aid with icons

Users reported the icons made the landing page less overwhelming and easy to navigate.


However, it still did not solve the problem of constantly switching between tabs.

Iteration #2

At-a-glance dashboard design

I chose to explore a dashboard design featuring customizable widgets, allowing users to access key information at a glance. This approach minimizes visual clutter and eliminates the need to navigate through multiple tabs.

04 Final Prototype

Interactive Prototype

Interactive Prototype

Interactive Prototype

Customizable dashboard with widgets

  • Reduces time searching and visual clutter by allowing users to keep only the features they use most often.

Quick links & actions

  • Shortcuts on the dashboard as icons

Collapsible sidebar

Single-tab course registration

  • Removes distracting animations

  • Reduces switching of tabs by providing immediate visual feedback for added courses in the calendar view

  • Clarifies language use by having one "submit" button

Before?

Waitlist system for popular courses

1) Getting on the waitlist

2) Viewing waitlist status & enrolling

05 Takeaways

User research and feedback is important

because it challenges personal bias & assumptions. This project was challenging because I was also one of the users. Conducting usability testing and listening to other’s feedback revealed insights I had not initially thought of.

Simplicity shouldn’t be at the expense of inclusivity.

Some found the “underutilized” features (advanced search and landing page hyperlinks) useful. We should be careful when making decisions on whether to keep or remove features.