Executive Summary

Intro

UT Students often struggle to find what they need on the MyUT App and instead rely on Google search when information feels unclear or scattered. This project redesigned the MyUT App to improve access and navigation of campus information. Based on research, we identified issues in organization, search, labeling, and navigation.

We addressed these through iterative design, refining the information architecture, improving visual clarity, and introducing time-based features that surface relevant information based on user context.

Methodology

Research: We conducted surveys and analyzed secondary usage data provided by the Digital Product Manager of Student Apps (Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid), along with competitive analysis, to understand user behavior and how information is structured across similar platforms.
Design & Development: We created a content inventory to organize the app’s content, then restructured the information architecture to improve clarity and navigation. The design was implemented and iterated through 3–4 development cycles.
Testing & Iteration: We conducted multiple rounds of usability testing on the working product, using both qualitative feedback and quantitative metrics (e.g., SUS scores and user performance) to evaluate improvements and inform each iteration.

Conclusion

Through our testing, we found that users prefer browsing over search, look for familiar cues rather than categories, and can feel overwhelmed when there are too many similar options. Across 3 iterations, we improved clarity, structure, and discoverability, leading to strong results, including an SUS score of 86.7 and an 89% improvement, along with better learnability and content credibility.

Although this started as a course project, we launched it on the App Store and shared it with the UT Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid team. We look forward to further collaboration to expand its impact for students and faculty at UT.

Problem Definition

Problem Statement

UT students are struggling to access on-campus resources through MY UT website, due to information overload and disorganized information structure - duplicated resources & lack of information hierarchy.

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How Might We

How might we empower UT students to navigate their on-campus resources through MYUT without cognitive overload & decision fatigue?

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User Need Analysis

Approach

We collaborated with Digital Product Manager of Student Apps (Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid) to gather secondary data, including search log, analysis report. These gave us the basis to understand the current state of MyUT and its product roadmap. Based on these reports and data, we conducted a survey against 16 graduate students of UT Austin to better understand their experience of navigating on campus resources.