MYCOURSES REDESIGN

MyCourses is the RIT student's essential survival tool. This course management platform enables students to submit their homework, stay on top of important deadlines, and keep track of their grades.

MY ROLE               
Research, UI/UX, Visual

YEAR 
Fall, 2017

“How can I help students manage their courses, grades, and assignments?”

While MyCourses is an essential tool for students, it's cumbersome to navigate, lacks hierarchy, and is inconsistently organized, making it difficult for student's to complete tasks, organize their priorities, and manage their time. 

Lack of Hierarchy 

All of the content is styled and presented similarly, so much that students have a difficult time finding assignments, announcements, and updates.

Cluttered navigation 

Navigation between courses, the home page, and all the features within the courses lack structure and consistency.

Facilitate communication

Course content is structured differently between each course, which breaks the schemas students have where certain content should be located.

GOALS

Increase Submissions

Help students keep track of all their due datesu00a0and empower students to submit their work on time

Improve Course Access

Create a seamless, intuitive experience that is natural and easy for the student to navigate

Facilitate Communication

Promote and encourage conversation between students and professors

The Avid Learner 

Thirsty for knowledge, these students dive deep into their assignments, are proactive about their tasks, and seek outlets to push themselves further

NEEDS
- Intuitive course navigation
- Access to contacting professors

The Busy Bee

Known as the extracurricular enthusiasts, these students are involved in numerous activities and need to optimize their time to balance their busy schedule

NEEDS
- Features that facilitate organization
- Intuitive, efficient system

The Submit-it and Quit-it

These students use the platform for the bare essentials, submitting homework and understanding when the next assignments are due

NEEDS
- Easy homework submission
- Task manager

Upcoming Assignments

An intelligent checklist that greets students upon landing. This module provides students with quick links to help them stay organized and get tasks completed on time.

Course Updates

Stay up to date with quick, digestible course notifications, as well as provide an easy, color-coded secondary means of entry into a courses’ page.

Dropbox

An organized and intuitive dropbox that sorts upcoming assignments for you, and notifies students on how much time they have left.

Course Tasks

Course task cards that explicitly inform students on what they are responsible for completing each week.

Course Board

Encourage supplementary conversation that is relevant to the course between students and faculty

The Users are King and Queen 

In redesigning a tool I use every day, I was challenged to set aside my own assumptions and quarrels with the platform and seek feedback from all types of users. This project provided the opportunity for me to learn the value of user research techniques like surveys and interviews to gain a deeper understanding all users. 

Accessibility 

Towards the end of my project, I began to realize that my system relies heavily on color. If I were to go back and redo this project, my first priority would be to make sure that the colors are accessible to all types of users and to provide another form of indication so that the system doesn't rely on color alone.

Interested in a deeper look at how I got to the final product? Check out my process documentation to see everything that went into making the final solution