Organization
New York University,
General Engineering Department
Timeline
TL;DR
Overview
Background
A 10-year-old course platform serving 600+ students and faculty each semester, redesigned in-house by 2 founding UX/UI designers.
Problem
Core workflows were scattered across the legacy site, some tasks required navigating 3+ tabs just to complete one action.
Approach
My co-designer and I audited every legacy workflow, flagged where tabs could consolidate, then split page ownership between us.
Outcome
A redesigned platform that consolidated scattered workflows into fewer, clearer tabs, needed fewer clicks, validated with real faculty and students.
+28.9% TSR
on Coursework Submission, among 18 testers, completing the task without switching tabs
-16.8% ToT
On Need Replacements, among the same 18 testers, vs. the legacy system
BACKGROUND
A decade-old site was still running a department serving 600+ people every semester.
My co-designer and I had already been TAs for the course, two years for me, one for her. So had the rest of the team, engineers included. We didn't have to guess where the workflow broke, we'd lived it.
PROBLEM
Simple tasks took three or more tabs to complete.
Faculty and students had to navigate a maze of disconnected pages just to finish tasks that should've taken one click to find.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
I moved between two roles constantly, understanding the problem, then designing the solution.
PRODUCT DESIGN
Audited legacy workflows to flag where scattered tabs could consolidate into one
Rapidly prototyped end-to-end flows from low- to high-fidelity
Articulated design rationale to full-stack engineers and professors acting as PMs
USER RESEARCH/INFO ARCHITECTURE
Conducted user interviews with students, TAs, and professors to understand the full experience
Mapped site architecture, migrating essential legacy functionality into the new platform layout
Ran usability testing with faculty and students to validate the final designs
METHODOLOGY
Accessibility was tested before a single high-fidelity screen existed.
My co-designer and I built our design system around self-tested WCAG AA compliance from the start, testing color contrast and interaction patterns early, not retrofitting them once the visuals were locked. The style guide, including palettes and typography choices, was a joint build with my co-designer, so it's not shown here in isolation.
FINAL DESIGN
Final Deliverables — NYU General Engineering
After rounds of iteration and testing, these are the final pages!
Page Spotlight
No design decisions were arbitrary. Here's the rationale behind each one.
Faculty Page
The old list gave no context on who did what, just names and faces. I added specialties and shifts, so a student stuck on a CAD or soldering question knows exactly who to ask, and the department gets some personality along the way.
Coursework Submission Page
Late submissions used to get buried in clutter, easy to miss unless a student flagged it. I made grading status visible at a glance, a checkmark versus plain text when it's missing, without penalizing TAs for submissions still awaited from students. Graders track their own progress, and managers audit timeliness, all in one tab.
Announcements Page
Old announcements were plain text blocks with no way to signal urgency, and writing one meant hunting for a separate, hard-to-find page. I redesigned both: clearer visual priority for what needs attention now, and a compose flow that lives where you'd expect it.
Gradebook Page
Loading every section's grades at once was what made the page slow. I redesigned it around a per-section dropdown, so only what's needed loads at a time, then added a one-click way to notify students the moment their grades update, closing a gap where changes went unnoticed.
Need Replacements Page
Filled requests used to sit in the same column as open ones, so TAs would sign up for shifts that were already covered. I merged two separate pages, requesting a replacement and finding an open shift, into one, and replaced vague sick leave text with clear, defined categories.
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
Try it yourself!
Walk through the Coursework Submission flow, now with grading status visible at a glance, and everything auditable without switching tabs.
Full Prototype
NEXT STEPS
Given more room beyond a part-time role
This was a part-time job on top of a full course load and extracurriculars, ambitious scope for the time we had. With more time, I'd want to test the pages we didn't get to prioritize, and expand the same tab-consolidation approach to the rest of the legacy site.
Extend testing to the rest of the platform
We tested additional functionality beyond the five pages featured here, but ran out of runway to fully document and refine every workflow before I graduated.
COLLABORATIVE CREDITS
