Smarter course pages for students and staff
Redesigning the Universit y of Sydney’s highest-traffic page to create a modern, scalable template that improves usability, performance, and decision-making for prospective students.
A confusing and cluttered design where key course information was lost in the noise
Establishing a UX project in unchartered territory
As the organisation was new to UX, I first had to frame the problem and solution for the executive team and create the structures for decision-making and collaboration.
Unpacking what's broken and why
I met with curriculum staff, compliance, marketing, student recruitment, and admissions. I reviewed dozens of live course pages to understand what content existed, how it got there, and why it wasn’t working.
Key stakeholders
I conducted interviews with 10 first-year students (5 domestic, 5 international) to understand:
How they researched courses?
What info mattered most?
What confused or blocked them?
I analysed leading university sites for smart patterns, then looked to platforms like Airbnb and Gumtree to see how large-scale, contributor-driven content can still feel consistent and easy to navigate. I asked myself:
How do these sites structure complex information so users aren’t overwhelmed?
What navigation patterns make it easy to scan and compare options?
How do they balance flexibility for authors vs. consistency for end-users?
Learnings from discovery phase
Improving the course page user experience one iteration at a time
To bring order to the chaos, I mapped the existing content and ran a card sort to identify natural groupings. This helped define the core sections of the page, which then informed both layout and navigation decisions.
Key stakeholders
I refined each content block so it was structured, consistent, and user-focused rather than long, unfocused text.
Empowering course page authors
A streamlined, user-focused design that replaces clutter with clarity.
