My Role
UX Research & UI Design
Team
Four Product Designers
Timeline
8 hours
Overview
UniPath is a desktop platform that connects students with relevant clubs and courses based on their interests and career aspirations. It simplifies the search process and incorporates anonymous peer reviews to help students make more informed decisions.
Key Outcomes:
2nd Place for Best Overall Design at Davis Design Fest.
Currently in early development with a project manager and developers, with plans for further user testing and feature refinement.
Solution Preview
Context
Design for education & career
UniPath was created during the 2024 Davis Design Fest at the University of California, Davis—a fast-paced, 8-hour design sprint. Our team was challenged to design a product that promotes education and career development while seamlessly integrating into daily life.
The Research
Looking for a need
Initial concept
Initially, our team considered creating a platform to connect students with alumni for career guidance. However, mentor feedback highlighted the overlap with platforms like LinkedIn and ADPList, prompting us to pivot toward supporting students in finding clubs and courses tailored to their career goals.
Looking at our journeys
While reflecting on our academic and professional journeys, my team recognized the significant role of clubs and courses in shaping our careers.
To ensure that there was a need amongst students within this aspect of career-building, we conducted research with a competitive analysis and user survey.
Checking out websites
For our competitive analysis, we examined existing platforms, such as RateMyProfessor, the UCD General Catalog, and Clubly, to identify key features and assess how effectively they addressed their users’ needs.
Our analysis revealed the following:
👩🏫 RateMyProfessor — Provides student reviews on professors and courses, helping users evaluate instructors before enrolling. However, it focuses solely on courses and offers no support for finding clubs or broader academic involvement.
📒 UC Davis General Catalog — Serves as the official course listing for the university. While comprehensive, it is outdated, difficult to navigate, and lacks user-friendly features like reviews or filters by interest.
♣️ Clubly — A platform showcasing student clubs, but it does not offer user reviews, lacks detailed insights, and has limited filtering options, making the discovery process inefficient.
Surveying our peers
We conducted on-the-spot interviews with fellow students, asking: "How did you discover that Davis Interactive is a UI/UX design organization?"
Overwhelmingly, students shared that finding clubs and courses involved scattered searches across social media and university websites, leaving them frustrated and unsure if they were making the best choices.
What does this tell us?
🚩 What was the problem?
Design Process
Utilizing what we've learned
Time for the thinking caps
With our research insights, our team began brainstorming potential solutions. We did a rapid ideation session, sketching rough layouts and discussing how best to address the pain points we uncovered.
These key questions guided our sketches:
How can we make finding clubs and courses as easy as searching for a class schedule?
How can we surface relevant, trustworthy information quickly for students who are short on time?
These questions led us to some early concepts for core features, such as:
Filtering by Major or Interests – to quickly surface relevant opportunities.
Anonymous Reviews – to capture candid student experiences.
Sketching it out
Once we worked out our key features, we translated our rough sketches into low-fidelity wireframes.
Here are the main features we chose to keep:
Search & Filter Page — A flexible search system enabling students to filter results by academic focus or extracurricular interests.
Course & Club Pages — Informational pages featuring user-submitted reviews, club descriptions, and course details, empowering students to make well-informed choices.
Review Submission — A quick, intuitive process for students to anonymously contribute their experiences.
Bringing our sketches online
After creating the wireframes, we transitioned into mid-fidelity prototyping using Figma. Given the 8-hour time constraint, we emphasized keeping the interface minimal and functional, favoring intuitive design patterns familiar to students over experimental solutions.
Throughout the process, we focused on our key user flows and ensured the final design was both practical and impactful.
Final Product
The fruits of our labor
Design System
We chose a purple color palette to symbolize ambition. This is reflected in the component library we created to keep our designs unified.
Finding a club
🔍 Streamlined Navigation — Simplified browsing and search tools ensure students can quickly find what they need without frustration.
Looking at members' experiences
🗂️ Club Pages with User Insights — Individual club pages display user reviews that provide deeper insights into the club experience.
Anonymously give feedback
🗣️ Peer-Driven Reviews — Users submit and browse anonymous reviews for both clubs and courses, helping peers make informed decisions.
Conclusion
Key takeaways & next steps
We're 2nd best!
Participating in the Davis Design Fest was a rewarding experience, particularly working under tight time constraints alongside my peers and truly testing our design thinking.
Earning 2nd place for Best Design was a testament to our hard work and creativity.
Now what?
We are collaborating with a project manager and developer to transform UniPath from a prototype into a fully functional platform. Our next phase will involve conducting additional user research and usability testing to refine key features and validate our design decisions, ensuring the final product effectively supports students in their academic and professional journeys.