Role
Researcher
Web Designer
Timeline
Jan - April 2024
Tools
Figma
Introduction
The “Universidad of Costa Rica” is one of the leading universities in Central America. Offering more than 300 careers, divided between 13 faculties, it gives students all kinds of opportunities for their careers. With this project, I set myself to solve the following problems the website had, and help all kinds of students along the way.
Problem
Their current website gives a total different look than it’s purpose, being a university website that lets new students enrol and apply to. This can confuse current and new students and make them leave the website, and leave the entire admission process.
Unclear Journey
Their website has not a clear path on where and how to apply to their university, or a look for important information. This can lead to confusion and frustration for the student and will cause them to leave.
Information Overload
Many of their pages are filled with information not relevant to their students, and this can confuse the student and force to look for the desired information elsewhere.
Incohesive Visuals
The website currently uses several different fonts, colours, poor hierarchy, and their sections are quite unorganised, which may make the student feel lost and overwhelmed, which can make them not know what they are looking for.
Solution
A modern and simple approach to learning
This new website will make the admission process much easier for new students looking to apply and join the “Universidad of Costa Rica” by completing it online on a new website, and current students looking to simply their experience looking for information for their projects and much more.
Goal
The goal started with this question: How is the experience of the students using digital platforms to study? Many friends are currently studying there and after asking them how was the experience, it was clear that a solution was needed.
Digitalize
My main goal with this project was to make the entire admission process and digital student environment much easier and simpler, so students would not feel overwhelmed making progress towards their careers.
Drive Users
I wanted current and new students to use the website more to make their lives easier while looking to start their careers. I wanted to make the admission process simpler and faster, and a digital student platform more fun and easier to use.
Process
Early Wireframing
From looking at several other university pages for inspiration, I’ve gathered enough information to start sketching and mapping what the new website would look like. This new website needed to contain the most important information for the new and current students, like admission process, resources and services, careers, etc.
Research
Method - Student Surveys
I conducted a total of 3 surveys to get the information I needed to start building the next designs. The purpose of the surveys were to solve the problem stated and to make all of the designs oriented towards all kinds of students.
Design
After the results from the first survey I gathered all the results and transformed it into a design that would translate the needs from students.
I changed some of the visual designs in each page from the wireframes, to improve hierarchy, readability and to also have the results from the students in mind, and also translated all the pages to Spanish, since most of the students in the university speak Spanish.
Final Design
Appearance
Used rounded corners
Improved hierarchy
More white space
Actual images from campus
Experience
Clearer and bigger buttons
Friendly language
Easy access to hard-to-get information
Incorporated internal processes to website.
Conclusion
This project took quite a while to complete due to lack of real information and many other obstacles but was able to push forward and give this project the love it deserved. I had a lot of fun making this because it was something I truly enjoyed doing since I was the one making all of the big decisions in this project. It was not easy at all but with effort and learning, it finally came all together.
My Learnings
User Research
Being this one of my first projects, I learned a lot about actual user-research, like how to ask the correct questions that would solve the issue presented or being able to get insights from real users.
Storytelling
Making and writing was not easy task either. I needed to learn how to tell the right information, the key ideas of this whole project, otherwise this would’ve turned completely different.
Feedback
Receiving and asking for feedback improved the quality of this project as well. I have a lot of friends that study or work at this incredible university, and really made this project shine with their contribution.
What would I do different?
Making a single survey and making sure it was a specific as possible, so I wouldn’t had to make several other ones.
Making this project responsive, since most users have more access to their mobile devices instead of a computer.
Made an actual prototype users can test for better user research and easier publishing.
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