Course Enrollment Redesign
How might we deliver a new student enrollment experience that provides more functionality to users, while representing the brand identity of the university and its students?
User Research, Branding with John Lorenzini, Sean Fong, and Elise Alinsug
I performed user research, and created a brand identity for a proposed redesign of UC Irvine's course enrollment system, during the ANTrepreneur Center's WebReg Hackathon in 2023.
Slow, difficult, outdated. Yet, WebReg continues to service 36,000+ students. UC Irvine’s student enrollment system haunts students, and even the faculty who proudly call the campus their alma mater.
With the Registrar's Office collaborating with the ANTrepeneur Center, students had a chance to change the system. Over the course of three months, competing in the WebReg Hackathon.
User Research
Collectively, we sent out a survey to the entire student body asking them to share their thoughts on WebReg. Here are some key points from a sample of around 600+ UC Irvine Students who voluntarily participated.
74% of students reported having issues with WebReg.
“Integrate Schedule of Classes” – requested in 570 responses
“Schedule Planner” – appears 490 times
“Search Bar” – requested 389 times
Giving airline check-in systems a run for their money, the University’s Registrar system, WebReg has remained mostly unchanged for the past decade.
Competitor Discovery
We also asked students across California about their student enrollment systems.
UC Davis employs fuzzy search, allowing users to search by "CRN, subject, instructor last name, or keyword"
UCLA contains a study plan, allowing a week-view of a proposed schedule.
In combination with our User Research, we were guided to the right direction when choosing to implement new features.
Zotology's Vision of a new WebReg
Observing modern UC Irvine sites like the Office of Financial Aid website, we also settled on a modular card-like design. These components act as the building blocks to our tagline, "Information at a Glance".
We also aimed to reduce information overload by providing one simple front-page for all registrar information: upcoming dates, enrollment window— instead of burying information in different pages or sections.
Bringing it all Together
Our design and functional demo brought us to the finals for this hackathon. With a student vote complementing judging, we set out on advertising over social media. A splash of UC Irvine blue, and typography that was very similar (but not infringing) on the defaults.
What did Zotology accomplish?
Zotology was awarded two important accolades: Third-place overall and second-place student vote. Below are also some statistics on our engineering end.
200+ authenticated users.
1,000+ API calls.
20,000+ searches.
Zotology, and our competitors began a conversation with the UC Irvine administration on what a next-generation student enrollment system would look like. This was my first-hackathon dabbling in the design process and overall product design.
Go Further!