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Degree Works
Track your progress toward your degree
Website Redesign
Overview
DegreeWorks is an academic advising tool aiding students in monitoring graduation progress by offering a comprehensive overview of academic standing, completed coursework, and remaining degree requirements. The website's goal is to help students make informed decisions about course selection and ensure they stay on track to meet their academic goals. Despite a 2022 UI and UX update aiming for a cleaner look and feel, some users have encountered unexpected challenges and issues due to the changes made.
"A comprehensive view—for advisor and advisee—of a student’s degree progress and the ability to head off challenges along the way."
- Ellucian Degree Works
Research
Context
Degree Works offers schools the ability to customize the tools and information provided to students in a way that works best with their particular curriculum and requirements. While this flexibility is ideal for colleges to personalize their pages, Degree Works's UI doesn't always adapt well to these customizations. This can lead to odd gaps of empty space on pages or menus and headers leading to nowhere.
This is the dashboard of SUNY Oswego which utilizes most of its features. Degree Works allows for the customization of the school's colors and accents.
The Current Design
Navigation
The system also lack navigation options to move around a page quickly. The only way to view different course requirements would be to scroll up and down a page.
User Insights
Interviews about DegreeWorks revealed a mixed experience among students. While the tool is a valuable resource for academic planning and degree tracking, some students report challenges related to its navigation and the potential for information overload. When talking to students from different CUNYs, SUNYs, and private colleges, many expressed frustration with the interface's layout, finding it difficult to locate wanted information or interpret the presented information quickly.
Essentially...
Disorganized UI
Overwhelming Information
Hard to navigate
No navigation bar for degree related sections
Presented information is hard to digest
Unable to hide or minimize unwanted information
System's adaptability doesn't lend itself to its UI
Redesign
To Begin
Keeping these issues in mind, I began redesigning the interface prioritizing the ease of finding and digesting information in a way that could seamlessly adapt to a school's customization.
Degree Works also has a simple goal of presenting students' degree progress and unmet requirements. As such, I didn't want to change the information presented, only how it was presented.
New Features
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Navigation Bar
A list-style side bar allows for more entries and pages to be added without compromising layout
Overview
Instant overall visual and numeric breakdown of all categories
Filters
Allows for only wanted information to be visible and decreases time sifting through sections
Drop-Down View
Can expand and condense sections. Further information is provided only when desired
Course Selection
Courses are categorized and spaced out to allow for more rapid comprehension. Exceptions are emphasized and separated to avoid potential confusion
Prototype Result
Refelction
Products Goal
The challenge for me here was to not create a completely different app but to improve the existing one while preserving its original purpose. Not every application needs to be an all-in-one product, but if it has a singular purpose, it should excel in fulfilling that purpose.
One Size Fits All?
While it was originally difficult to figure out how to make the UI accommodate customizations aesthetically, this project taught me how certain design choices can either be very rigid or particularly fluid
Simplifying Is Key
Many of the pain points for users came from not being able to find or understand information. Small adjustments to present information visually or having the ability to filter out excess information goes a long way in terms of feeling in control of an app.