MyUW Rebuild
UW’s Enterprise Portal modernization for instructors, employees, and alumni
MyUW is a portal for 17,000 UW instructors and 43,000 employees to manage HR-related tasks and teaching-related tasks.
Client
University of Washington
My Role
UX designer
Visual designer
Interaction designer
Front-end developer
UX researcher
MyUW is an essential tool among 50K+ UW students and employees to track their class schedules, tuition balance, and HR & administrative information.
Problem Overview
UW-IT needed to modernize the MyUW’s aging platform and to address usability problems. To migrate 85K UW members to a web portal on a new platform smoothly, the project charter was formed to handle the magnitude of the project. The Multi-phased rebuild project kicked off its multi-year endeavor of conducting research. Insights from quantitative and qualitative research have become the foundation of our design effort.
The MyUW rebuild project phase 1 launched a new mobile-friendly site for only undergraduate students in 2014 and phase 2 for the Graduate students in the subsequent year. The single page portal satisfied students’ academic needs, but didn’t cover the breadth of needs in students' lives. Secondly, UW staff, faculty and other populations needed to migrate to the new site in phase 3. Finally, we needed to revise the student-optimized experience to accommodate the new population’s needs.
PROCESS
User Research & Synthesis
MyUW rebuild project’s foundational user research and data gathering employed multiple research methods. The research scientist led dozens of interviews across many focus groups, and conducted surveys with several hundred responses. The diary study method was employed to learn student’s information gathering behavior in detail.
Research findings:
Too much information on landing page overwhelmed users
Critical information was hard to find
Time management was difficult
Critical information needs were dynamic, yet predictable to an extent
The research insights identified that the student’s quarterly workflow and how MyUW could better support students as they start and work through each quarter.
Student journey map
UW Continuum College Student enrollment and course offering data
Exploring Design Solutions
To address the difficulty in finding critical information and the information overload problem, we focused on prioritizing the information. We audited content and restructured the site to align with user’s needs and the academic calendar cycles.
To provide the most useful information to different user populations, we also personalized the landing page utilizing user’s affiliation data. That way, students could view the academic information first while Instructors could view their teaching schedule first. Staff could access their administrative tools quickly.
Key user tasks to support:
Understand a Visual schedule and course information.
View MyUW Notice messages and take actions.
Check the tuition balance & the tuition statement.
Access the HR tool to request a leave and to track a vacation balance.
New site structure for the new MyUW
Checking application status workflow
Prototype & Iterate
Understanding this quarter’s schedule at a glance
Based on the research and understanding of top needs, redesign efforts explored putting the schedule information at the front and center. Enrolled students can view this quarter’s schedule on the Homepage and Academics page along with course information.
Exploring visual schedule design by class types in wireframe
Visual schedule on homepage
Checking the Tuition and Husky Card Balance
One of the most important administrative tasks for students was being on top of their tuition balance and the Husky card (reloadable debit account) balance. The proposed design allowed students to view their tuition balance and access the full statement in addition to contextual help content at a glance in the Tuition card.
The Student's Account page shows the tuition balance, Husky card balance, and other accounts’ status
Exploring visual style and labels for the UW Medicine employees and medical students
Accessing the HR/Payroll System from MyUW
UW employees and student employees needed an easy way to access HR related information from the enterprise portal, MyUW. The new HR/Payroll card displays the essential job information (job title, department) and provides access to the HR/Payroll operations system, Workday.
HR/Payroll card on a UW employee’s home page
A quick access to HR system from HR/Payroll card for student employees
The new MyUW is optimized to provide the most sought-out information by different user groups. Class schedule for students (screen 1), teaching schedule for instructors (screen 2), UW Medicine account status for medical staff (screen 3)
OUTCOME
MyUW Phase 3 was released in April 2018. Finally, faculty, staff, applicants, alumni, and retirees could access the portal from their mobile phones and glance over the personalized information quickly instead of getting overwhelmed by a wall of text.
With the new portal, the UW-IT Help Desk has received fewer service requests for ordering a transcript from UW alums. The new MyUW has also improved non-traditional students’ experience with the student portal thanks to close collaboration with campus partners.
Before: MyUW legacy home page for Alumni
After: New MyUW homepage for Alumni
In June 2018, UW-IT happily turned off the legacy enterprise portal site.