CASE STUDY

U-M Student Life

U-M Student Life

When 50,000 students cannot find what they need, you do not redesign the pages. You redesign the structure.

When 50,000 students cannot find what they need, you do not redesign the pages. You redesign the structure.

UX DESIGNER + IA LEAD / MICHIGAN CAPSTONE / 2023-2024 / 20 INTERVIEWS

U-M Student Life cover

OVERVIEW

The University of Michigan Division of Student Life website held everything 50,000 students needed, from counseling to housing to careers, and almost nobody could find any of it. The redesign was eighty percent information architecture and twenty percent pixels. A tree test on the proposed structure hit 78 percent task success against 31 percent on the live site.

The University of Michigan Division of Student Life website held everything 50,000 students needed, from counseling to housing to careers, and almost nobody could find any of it. The redesign was eighty percent information architecture and twenty percent pixels. A tree test on the proposed structure hit 78 percent task success against 31 percent on the live site.

THE PROBLEM

01

The IA mirrored the org chart, not student need.

Finding a therapist meant knowing which department happened to house that service.

02

Mobile was an afterthought.

Roughly seventy percent of student traffic was mobile, but core tasks took four to six taps to even begin.

03

Nobody knew what students were trying to do.

There was no task-completion telemetry, so the redesign had to start with research rather than layouts.

SELECTED SCREENS

U-M Student Life page 05
U-M Student Life page 09
U-M Student Life page 17

← Back to work