Case Study

Degree Shopping, Made Simple: Rethinking Degree Discovery for Prospective Students

Created the University's degree discovery page to improve user experience, increase engagement, and streamline the process of finding relevant programs for prospective students.

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Overview

The university's existing degree funnel was outdated and unintuitive. It relied on internal academic hierarchies that assumed users understood which college or school housed each program. This created a significant barrier for prospective students, who struggled to answer a simple question:"Does this university offer something I'm interested in?"

To solve this, I led the development of a redesigned degree exploration experience—a centralized webpage that made it easy to browse offerings by topic, not bureaucracy. The goal was to maximize discoverability, reduce friction, and confidently help users window-shop.

I conceptualized, designed, built, and launched the solution without waiting for top-down approval, because I knew the best way to demonstrate its value was to make it real and let the data speak for itself.

Role & Responsibilities

As the senior web developer and project lead, I initiated and executed this project after identifying a UX issue impacting prospective student engagement. Despite lacking formal approval, I recognized that real user data was the only way to demonstrate the solution's potential.

My responsibilities included:

Project Ownership: Defined goals, structured the project, and set up a plan to generate measurable engagement data.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked with Academic Affairs to gather and structure program data for consistency and accuracy.
UX & Content Design: Simplified degree information with plain-language categories, helping prospective students find programs based on interest rather than institutional structure.
Development & Integration: Built the solution within the existing WordPress theme, ensuring accessibility, performance, and alignment with brand guidelines.
Strategic Execution: Launched the page as a test case to collect data and validate its effectiveness in the broader student recruitment funnel.

This approach reflects my leadership philosophy: when bureaucracy gets in the way of progress, sometimes it's better to act strategically and transparently, letting data prove the value of your work.

Discovery & Strategy

The old system was structured around academic departments, not how prospective students think about their areas of interest. My approach was to:

Focus on topic-based categories that aligned with user intent, not institutional hierarchies.
Use plain-language labels and familiar search terms, making it easier for prospective students to find relevant programs.
Work closely with Academic Affairs to ensure the program data was accurate and consistent across the board.
Launch a fully functional version of the page to gather real user data using Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity for actionable insights.

This allowed me to iterate quickly, based on real-world behavior rather than assumptions.

Obstacles & Opportunities

This project involved several significant challenges:

Institutional Constraints: The approval process was slow, and I had to move forward without a formal sign-off. The solution? Launch a fully operational version and use real user data to convince leadership.
Reframing the Information Architecture: I had to move away from the university's internal academic structure and create categories that made sense to users. This meant balancing institutional accuracy with user-centered design.
Data Accuracy and Alignment: Collaborating with the Academic Affairs team was critical for ensuring the program data was correct and aligned with institutional standards.
Testing in a Live Environment: Launching the solution in the live environment meant no traditional testing phase. Instead, I gathered insights directly from live user behavior, which gave us immediate, valuable feedback.
Stakeholder Buy-In: Gaining buy-in from senior leadership was challenging without top-down approval. The only way to demonstrate its value was through measurable results from live users.

Results & Impact

The project delivered measurable success, validated through both user engagement and internal feedback:

Increased Engagement: Program page views rose significantly, and analytics data from Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity showed users spending more time engaging with program offerings. This confirmed the effectiveness of the new layout.
Higher User Satisfaction: Feedback from prospective students and advisors confirmed that users found the new design more intuitive. By simplifying how programs were categorized and displayed, we made it easier for prospective students to find the needed information.
Data-Backed Decision-Making: The real-world data we gathered helped convince leadership to move forward with the solution. It provided the evidence needed to justify expanding this approach across other parts of the website.
Strategic Influence: The success of this initiative led to broader conversations about user-centered design and how it could be applied to future digital projects. This shift in mindset began to inform the university's wider digital strategy.

After content integration, I conducted a full refactor of the codebase and layout to address new behavior challenges on different devices and screen sizes—reinforcing a results-driven mindset and fearless approach to problem-solving.

Reflections

This project underscored several key lessons that helped refine my approach to leadership, problem-solving, and collaboration:

The Power of Action: Sometimes, the best way to demonstrate value is to act first, collect data, and prove your assumptions with real-world results. Waiting for approval can delay progress, while moving thoughtfully and strategically, to learn from real user behavior, can drive meaningful change faster.
User-Centered Design Leads to Clarity: Simplifying the information architecture to focus on topics rather than internal academic hierarchies helped create a much clearer and more engaging user experience. This confirmed that users don't care about institutional structures but about finding relevant information quickly.
Data Is Invaluable: Through Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, Live user testing provided insights that no other method could offer. Seeing how users interacted with the page allowed me to iterate in real time and make informed decisions based on actual behavior.
Collaboration Is Key: The collaboration with Academic Affairs was essential for ensuring the accuracy and relevance of program data. This reinforced the importance of cross-functional teamwork and how it can directly contribute to the success of a project.
Leadership Involves Taking Initiative: Moving the project forward despite a lack of formal approval showed me that leadership isn't always about waiting for permission — it's about recognizing when action is needed and moving thoughtfully, strategically, and transparently toward a solution.

Summary

This project demonstrated that data-driven decisions and a user-first mindset can lead to impactful, strategic improvements, even when navigating institutional constraints. By acting strategically, gathering honest user feedback, and making a clear case for the value of the solution, I was able to drive change that positively impacted both the prospective student experience and the university's digital strategy.