Overview.

Every Quarter, UC Davis students plan their academic schedules and register for courses through Schedule Builder. 

In a span of three weeks, our group embarked on completing a redesign that would create a more streamlined experience for students registering for new classes. Additionally, we strived to implement additional features that would help students find the best classes to sign up for based on their major that would keep them on track to graduate. 

For: Design Interactive

Role: UI/UX Designer

Team: Jolina Huang, Joyce Pau, Yzabel Martinez

Duration: 3 Weeks

Tools: Figma, FigJam, Google Forms

Awards: Most Innovative Design

Problem.

How might we make the process of course planning on Schedule Builder more intuitive and organized for students?

Research.

Over the span of five days, our team conducted research using Google Forms in order to find students pain points when registering for classes and utilizing Schedule Builder to build their upcoming schedules. We received 36 responses from UC Davis students ranging from first years to fifth years looking for what they liked and disliked about the platform.  

After reviewing our survey responses, we utilized affinity mapping to quickly find common pain points including:

1. Scheduling conflicts—many of our users found that Schedule Builder can be overwhelming to navigate when building their schedules with copious amounts of information and too many points of interest to choose from. 
2. Information is not upfront—users find that information is not upfront about open seats for classes, alternative sections of classes, and registration requirements. 
3. "Hard keeping track of classes that go towards my degree"—many users would like to have a feature where they could see their major or minor requirements when building their schedules to register for the best classes that will keep them on track. They also find it hard to build a class schedule because they have to keep track of class times so they don't overlap. Many end up seeking out external extensions that would help them see which classes are the best fit for their calendar. 

Ideation.

In analyzing our responses, we saw that many of our users enjoy the ability to build multiple schedule versions for their upcoming quarter, the quick access to the "Register All" button, and being able to see easily when there is a class time conflict once they save a class to their calendar. Another aspect they found useful was being able to see what prerequisites are required for a class and the number of available seats prior to registration. 

Common suggestions we read that were important for our users were additional features such as a degree check and the ability to see professors' Rate My Professor scores. As of now, students typically check their required classes with their advisors or in a separate degree check website through UC Davis and they download a third party extension that will allow students to see Rate My Professor ratings. Students would also like to have more personalized experiences by seeing suggested classes based on commonalities between them and others in their major. One final suggestion we saw was that since students like having an indication of when class times conflict, they would like to see this when they are searching for classes, rather than seeing this once the class is added it to their calendar. 

Wireframes.

We began by sketching out our ideas to present to each other. This allowed us to explore our design options and see the different paths we could take to solve our problem. We made sure to address our users' problems—such as ensuring students' class schedules were visible when they were searching for other classes, and a way to check what is required for their major. 

Design.

Mid-Fi Iterations.

User Testing.

As we created our mid-fi iterations, we reached out for feedback from our peers to improve our designs. Users liked our implementation of new features, such as a degree check and overall more clarity of class information. The main feedback we received was:

1. Users wanted more visibility of class titles on schedules, particularly on the sidebar
2. Users observed that there was space on the sidebar for more features, which they wanted to be used for personalized course suggestions
3. They also wanted an indication on their degree checklist of requirements that are still left to be fulfilled

Design Guidelines. 

Final Product.

Home Screen.

 Users can open Schedule Builder to either begin creating a schedule or see their finalized schedule for the quarter. Students can clearly see their pass time along with suggested courses and a degree progress chart on their sidebars to stay on top of their graduation plan. 

Course Search.

Users can easily switch to the search page, where they can discover classes using general or advanced search options. We've color-coded the classes to match the appearance of their schedule on the sidebar, allowing students to check for potential conflicts. Additionally, course details include a professor's Rate My Professor score, eliminating the need to visit external websites.

New Features.

Our redesign introduces key features, including dedicated pages for a degree checklist, user profiles with convenient links to essential UC Davis resources, such as major-specific websites and advisor appointment scheduling, as well as a consolidated schedules page for students to efficiently manage and review all potential schedules for upcoming quarters during their registration period.

Conclusion.

My group and I are grateful to have completed the Design Interactive design sprint to be shared with our peers and receive feedback.

Through this process, we learned:

1. The design process involves many iterations— continuing to keep the user in mind, we ensured to develop many iterations to make sure the main needs of our audience was met. 
2. Design for your user— it's easy to design based on what you think looks good, but we reminded ourselves that we are designing to better our peers' experiences registering and planning out their class schedules. What additional features would make their registration process better? What are some common themes we found in our research that we need to address? These are some aspects we made sure to keep in mind throughout our entire process. 
3. Tailor and personalize the experience on Schedule Builder for our users— the UC Davis student body is so diverse with individuals from all over the world and from different backgrounds and needs. We needed to consider how our peers' vast backgrounds impacted how they register for classes and planned out their path to graduation. 

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