Class Registration Process
End-to-end UX and UI design
UX researcher, Project manager, Engineer, Myself
Double Diamond Design Process
Figma, Zeplin
Two weeks
Registration Process is cumbersome - Let's make it intuitive
Registering for semester classes has never been easy for any of us. Especially when you are newly enrolled in a program. The process is broken into different links, and you have to ask for help to familiarise yourself to the process. And then remembering the subject codes to get register is a whole new story.
I got really excited when I got the opportunity to redesign the registration process for the University of Washington (UW). It was a great way to help others facing the same problem. I followed a one-week design sprint with 5 other teammates to tackle the usability issues in this registration process. With 6,000 newly enrolled students at UW each year, I saw this as a great opportunity to show how an easier process can help increase retention and the number of enrolments each year.
Key skills
Research and interviews, Competitive analysis, Personas, Crazy 8, user flows, high fidelity wireframes, Prototype, Testing, developer handoffs
How might we increase student retention by making class registration process more accessible and intuitive.
Analyzing what is currently wrong with the flow.
We tried to understand the depth of the problem by interviewing few of the university alumni. But guess what? Each one faced the same problem! Then, to get everyone on the same page we listed all the assumptions we had about the students (end users), and short and long term goals so we can validate them with the product owner and make sure that everyone is on the same page, and we are going on the right track.
Validating assumptions, and narrowing our problems.
We validated our assumptions with product owner. Front and back end developers were asked about their concerns. We listened to their suggestions and prioritised which problems to solve first and narrowed down our focus to 4 problems in class registration process.
Design challenges we faced.
After identifying the potential problems, we list down all the design challenges that we might face and narrowed them down to focus on most important ones.
How other universities are tackling this problem?
With Problems focused, we performed a competitive analysis to discover potential solutions. We reviewed platforms from both universities and companies to gain inspiration.
Competitive analysis
We performed competitive analysis to understand what other universities are doing and how we can use it to improve the usability issues.
This analysis showed that some universities implemented the shopping process in the class registration which made the experience easier and familiar.
Brainstorming some low-fidelity solutions
Once we understood our problems and gained perspective on how to solve them, we began to sketch out the possible solutions. in our wireframes, we implemented solutions that involved search filters, shopping actions, edits, and selection review.
Designing and prototyping with scenarios in mind.
After getting some ideas from sketching, we start building a high-fidelity prototype for user testing by keeping 3 scenarios.
Moment of truth
We conducted our first moderated usability testing on our first Prototype. We gave users following tasks to complete:
Tasks
I- Register for Class
II- Drop and Swap a Class
III- Change Grading Options
67% Success Rate in first usability-testing
What did we miss?
Our design solution managed to improve the navigation, IA, clear CTA etc. But we discovered that users still had some issues with it.
Issues with first prototype
I- Endless scrolling in Course Catalogue.
II- Unnecessary in Enrolment process.
III- Some icons are confusing in MyCart
Adding filters in course catalogue
Stop scrolling, start filtering
We added filters for users to narrow down search results without potentially having to scroll endlessly and included an options to select quarters.
Improving information flow
1- Making things simple and easy to access
Testing showed the enrolment options were completely overlooked because they were blending in with the existing header. We solved this problem by designing clear and simplified CTA buttons on the right side.
2- Removing unnecessary links
We also discovered the “update schedule” links were causing obtrusiveness due to their colours and underline. We simply removed them as these features were not necessary on this page.
Clearer CTA and Icons
Recognition rather than recall
Testing results showed users were having a hard time completing the enrolment process because the CTA wasn’t intuitive. Users had to scroll down to complete the process so we consolidated list view and calendar view into a toggle button. This allowed the “Enrol” button to move above the fold.
Making CTA clear by consolidating additional information
Testing showed the ellipses caused confusion for most users as they were not sure that they were for editing classes. We solved this problem by adding separate edit and remove icons for users to make the process more intuitive.
Did we make any progress?
For our second usability testing sprint, we specifically chose an older generation of people to test our prototype. We assumed if the older generation could easily navigate the prototype, the younger generation will be able to as well.
90.5% success Rate in 2nd usability-testing
What we learned?
Our solution turned out to be intuitive enough that even older people were able to easily register for classes in less time.
Some quotes from testers
“This system is easier than what my university uses.”
“I don’t have to look up those SLN codes for my classes anymore.”
we used Zeplin to handoff our final design to developers
We brought design screen into the Zeplin to make sure that all elements are named right and to handoff the different components to the our developers.
Design is never done
After solving the problems we faced with adding classes, dropping classes, grading options and registration status, we will now continue on to the second sprint challenge that will cover other problems we were unable to solve in the initial sprint timeframe. For our roadmap, we are planning on working on: iterating on the planner and finding ways to make the transition to the new system easier for recurring students.
In this teamwork, I am incredibly grateful for the work that we have accomplished and the skills we have gained. Always looking forward to work with my team again, to learn from them and grow with them.