Northeastern
Improving information discovery for
prospective students and visitors.
Duration
18 Weeks
Responsibilities
Visual Design, UX Design, Prototyping, Usability testing.
Tools
Figma, Miro, Adobe Suite
Background
The Northeastern’s landing page serves as the digital front door to University's diverse academic programs, embodying the spirit of the institution and serving as a primary portal for prospective students to explore educational opportunities, understand the admissions process, and immerse themselves in the campus experience.
my Role
I led the end-to-end design of web and mobile experiences to align with the needs and behaviors of prospective students and collaborated with engineers to oversee the deployment.
Impact
The redesign resulted in a remarkable increase in website traffic and news letter signups and met with outstanding positive sentiment in users highlighting higher information accessibility and a more enjoyable navigational experience.
Problem
Prospective students were frustrated with finding information on the website.

Upon arriving at the landing page, students are greeted with a barrage of visual elements and information. This abundance of content, rather than being helpful, often resulted in confusion due to the website's complex design, difficult navigation routes, and the elusive nature of essential information.This resulted in students exerting more effort in deciphering the website's layout than in exploring the academic opportunities that Northeastern University offers.
72%
about three quarters of visitors leave without opening the menu
26%
only 26% of visitors successfully navigated to academic information.
68%
of the visitors stated the website is incredibly hard to use.
I just want to find the program details & deadlines, but the info seems to be buried under so many layers. It shouldn't be hard to find what I need.
The navigation is jumpy and
doesn’t have a clear signifier.
Content is presented in a narrow window and the  headline doesn’t represent Northeastern's life.
The primary menu is hidden on scroll making it hard for visitors to find the information they need.
Deprecated features were prioritized.
opportunity
How can we improve the process of discovering information for visitors and make their experience more engaging?
When prospective students visit Northeastern University's landing page, they want to quickly understand what makes Northeastern unique, including its academic programs, student life, and the admissions process, so they can decide if it aligns with their educational and personal goals. Hence, the goal was to help prospective students see themselves thriving at Northeastern and make an informed decision about their future.
goal
An experience that not only provides progressive and easier way to get to information, but also captures the vibrant community and opportunities as best as possible.
Northstar Principles
Clear and Simple
Ensure the experience is straightforward and intuitive.
User-Centric
Design with the end-user’s needs, emotions, and behaviors as the focal point.
Authentic and Engaging
Create an experience that reflects the university’s values, culture, and community.
Process timeline
Userflows and IA
An effortless and intuitive way to getting the information you need.
The analytics data revealed that visitors spend most of their time on the homepage scrolling from top to bottom glancing for info and crucial information such as academics and application guidelines being buried under menus didn’t help. Hence I added a section on the home screen to house the call-to-actions for the information.
Design Decisons
Simplifying the complex navigation by making it clear and accessible [+Enjoyable ]
We ideated on different ways to include the information on the home screen, and since most of the visitors spend their time on home screen, scroll to find the information scent and click on anything that’s promising. Hence, Critical information is moved to the home screen to improve it discoverability and opted in for a full-screen navigation to house different subsets of options.
Before
after
I have also made the navigation full-width to give more real-estate and established two sections to show the menu items clearly to make them more glanceable and define the visual hierarchy.
Before
after
Visual Design
Building a new style guide based on existing Northeastern brand guidelines.
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2
Subheader 1
Subheader 2
Testing and changes
Making improvements based on feedback.
To our delight, the internal testing revealed no significant usability concerns. This allowed us to shift our focus toward enhancing user experience through addressing edge cases and user feedback.

Key improvements included the integration of multimedia control for hero section, such as the ability to seamlessly play, pause between video and image content, prioritized efficient load times and consistent performance across mobile and web by opting for dynamic layouts through lightweight transitions instead of a more performance intensive video banner.
V1 - Video
During the internal testing, development stated that playing a lengthy video caused significant load times and was glitching in lower bandwidths. Hence we opted to include a series of transitioning images and changed the headline to match what the section represents to cover different aspects of student life.
V2 - IMage transition
Final design
Reflection
Results & Reflection
After working closely with development to bring the designs to life, we launched the test version of the website and crossed our fingers. At the inception, we documented two primary indicators of success; higher engagement and improved satisfaction. Fortunately, our users found the experience more engaging and satisfying than ever.

Since the launch, the website traffic was doubled and we saw an increase in clicks on Academics CTA by 16%, and navigation menu by 28%, and the signups to the newsletter by 10%. A win of this magnitude meant clearing the way to test new groups and potential visitors, create a robust system to expand further to more task-oriented areas like admissions, student life and charitable contribution.
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