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Updating The Advising Experience
Updating The Advising Experience
Updating The Advising Experience
Updating The Advising Experience
Updating The Advising Experience
The Product
A centralized advising website for all students at Missouri S&T, ensuring clarity and accessibility of advising information across the university.
The Challenge
The previous advising site was misleading, as it only served first-year students, first-year transfers, and undeclared majors, while marketing itself as a resource for all students. This led to confusion and students seeking advising in the wrong places.
Objective
Redesign and restructure the advising website to serve all students, regardless of their department or academic standing.
The Product
A centralized advising website for all students at Missouri S&T, ensuring clarity and accessibility of advising information across the university.
The Challenge
The previous advising site was misleading, as it only served first-year students, first-year transfers, and undeclared majors, while marketing itself as a resource for all students. This led to confusion and students seeking advising in the wrong places.
Objective
Redesign and restructure the advising website to serve all students, regardless of their department or academic standing.
The Product
A centralized advising website for all students at Missouri S&T, ensuring clarity and accessibility of advising information across the university.
The Challenge
The previous advising site was misleading, as it only served first-year students, first-year transfers, and undeclared majors, while marketing itself as a resource for all students. This led to confusion and students seeking advising in the wrong places.
Objective
Redesign and restructure the advising website to serve all students, regardless of their department or academic standing.
The Product
A centralized advising website for all students at Missouri S&T, ensuring clarity and accessibility of advising information across the university.
The Challenge
The previous advising site was misleading, as it only served first-year students, first-year transfers, and undeclared majors, while marketing itself as a resource for all students. This led to confusion and students seeking advising in the wrong places.
Objective
Redesign and restructure the advising website to serve all students, regardless of their department or academic standing.
The Product
A centralized advising website for all students at Missouri S&T, ensuring clarity and accessibility of advising information across the university.
The Challenge
The previous advising site was misleading, as it only served first-year students, first-year transfers, and undeclared majors, while marketing itself as a resource for all students. This led to confusion and students seeking advising in the wrong places.
Objective
Redesign and restructure the advising website to serve all students, regardless of their department or academic standing.
2025
Timeline
UX Designer
My Role
UX Designer, Faculty, Leadership, Communications & Promotions Manager
UX Designer, Faculty, Leadership, Communications & Promotions Manager
UX Designer, Faculty, Leadership, Communications & Promotions Manager
UX Designer, Faculty, Leadership, Communications & Promotions Manager
The Team
Our success
The site was recently launched, and we are awaiting feedback and any data to gauge its success.
My Role
My Role
I served as the Lead UX Designer for this project, overseeing its completion. Since the university does not have project or product managers, it is usually our responsibility as one of three designers to ensure the successful execution of our projects.
Initially, I took on project management duties until the department now overseeing advising hired a new employee to manage their online presence.
Additionally, I developed the site using TerminalFour, the CMS platform used by the university.
I served as the Lead UX Designer for this project, overseeing its completion. Since the university does not have project or product managers, it is usually our responsibility as one of three designers to ensure the successful execution of our projects.
Initially, I took on project management duties until the department now overseeing advising hired a new employee to manage their online presence.
Additionally, I developed the site using TerminalFour, the CMS platform used by the university.
Project Kickoff
Project Kickoff
The Vice Chancellor of Student Success initiated this project after advising was moved under her leadership. The goal was to build a comprehensive and accessible advising hub for the entire student body. Early in the process, we met with leadership and key faculty members from all three colleges to understand their needs, priorities, and existing advising structures.
The Vice Chancellor of Student Success initiated this project after advising was moved under her leadership. The goal was to build a comprehensive and accessible advising hub for the entire student body. Early in the process, we met with leadership and key faculty members from all three colleges to understand their needs, priorities, and existing advising structures.
Faculty Resistance & Early Challenges
Faculty Resistance & Early Challenges
Missouri S&T’s three colleges have numerous departments with differing advising structures. Many faculty members resisted the new site, preferring to maintain advising information on their departmental pages, even though most of those pages lacked adequate information, if any at all.
Additionally, I assumed advising was structured uniformly across departments (e.g., students assigned by last name). However, each department had a different approach:
Some are assigned specific faculty advisors.
Others used all the faculty members.
Some relied on professional advisors and faculty members.
The S&T Advising Center (will talk more about this department later).
This fragmentation made it difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution.
Missouri S&T’s three colleges have numerous departments with differing advising structures. Many faculty members resisted the new site, preferring to maintain advising information on their departmental pages, even though most of those pages lacked adequate information, if any at all.
Additionally, I assumed advising was structured uniformly across departments (e.g., students assigned by last name). However, each department had a different approach:
Some are assigned specific faculty advisors.
Others used all the faculty members.
Some relied on professional advisors and faculty members.
The S&T Advising Center (will talk more about this department later).
This fragmentation made it difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution.
Competitive analysis done of different universities.
Leveraging Competitive Analysis and Heuristics
Leveraging Competitive Analysis and Heuristics
Given the tight project timeline, we prioritized efficient, insight-driven methods in place of full-scale user testing. I conducted:
Competitive analysis to benchmark against similar university advising sites and identify effective patterns.
Similarities: Many sites featured sections like advisor contact/appointments, degree planning, and academic support, ensuring essential functions were covered.
Differences: Sites like UMKC segmented navigation by user roles (students, advisors, success coaches). UMSL included extensive resources like advisor outcomes and myConnect information, whereas Mizzou focused more on grade and transcript-related functions.
Heuristic evaluations to uncover usability issues and align the experience with best practices in higher education web design.
While direct user testing wasn't feasible, these methods ensured a user-centered approach and informed meaningful design decisions.
To support alignment across departments, I also prepared a slide deck outlining the proposed site structure and user experience. Although it wasn’t ultimately needed, it was ready for presentation to stakeholders as needed to gain buy-in.
Given the tight project timeline, we prioritized efficient, insight-driven methods in place of full-scale user testing. I conducted:
Competitive analysis to benchmark against similar university advising sites and identify effective patterns.
Similarities: Many sites featured sections like advisor contact/appointments, degree planning, and academic support, ensuring essential functions were covered.
Differences: Sites like UMKC segmented navigation by user roles (students, advisors, success coaches). UMSL included extensive resources like advisor outcomes and myConnect information, whereas Mizzou focused more on grade and transcript-related functions.
Heuristic evaluations to uncover usability issues and align the experience with best practices in higher education web design.
While direct user testing wasn't feasible, these methods ensured a user-centered approach and informed meaningful design decisions.
To support alignment across departments, I also prepared a slide deck outlining the proposed site structure and user experience. Although it wasn’t ultimately needed, it was ready for presentation to stakeholders as needed to gain buy-in.
Early lowfidelity mockups in Figjam brainstorming out different layouts on how to organize content on this site.
Roadblocks in Information Gathering
Roadblocks in Information Gathering
After developing early mockups and conducting a competitive analysis, progress stalled due to a lack of critical advising information needed to move forward with the site design. At that point, I wasn't confident I had everything necessary to ensure the site would meet the needs of each department’s students.
Attempts to collect this information proved challenging. Many faculty members were hesitant to share details and voiced concerns about the new site. To keep the project moving, I decided to pivot my approach.
After developing early mockups and conducting a competitive analysis, progress stalled due to a lack of critical advising information needed to move forward with the site design. At that point, I wasn't confident I had everything necessary to ensure the site would meet the needs of each department’s students.
Attempts to collect this information proved challenging. Many faculty members were hesitant to share details and voiced concerns about the new site. To keep the project moving, I decided to pivot my approach.
Pivoting the Approach
Pivoting the Approach
Pivoting the Approach
Realizing I needed a new strategy, I consulted with the VC of Student Success. She provided essential advising information that she knew would be helpful for all students.
Leveraging my experience in stakeholder management, I implemented a method I’ve found highly effective: mockup-first feedback loops. By creating a preliminary structure and showing it to faculty, I could encourage them to correct inaccuracies rather than having to extract information from them proactively. This approach helped move the project forward.
Realizing I needed a new strategy, I consulted with the VC of Student Success. She provided essential advising information that she knew would be helpful for all students.
Leveraging my experience in stakeholder management, I implemented a method I’ve found highly effective: mockup-first feedback loops. By creating a preliminary structure and showing it to faculty, I could encourage them to correct inaccuracies rather than having to extract information from them proactively. This approach helped move the project forward.
Heuristic evaluation on the three proposed solutions I presented to the team.
Defining the Site Structure
Defining the Site Structure
Once I had the information needed to ensure the site met all user needs, the next step was determining how to categorize the advising resources. Three options emerged:
Once I had the information needed to ensure the site met all user needs, the next step was determining how to categorize the advising resources. Three options emerged:
1
By College
A broad overview of each of the three colleges.
1
By College
A broad overview of each of the three colleges.
1
By College
A broad overview of each of the three colleges.
2
By College with Department Links
General advising info at the college level with links to each department’s advising page.
2
By College with Department Links
General advising info at the college level with links to each department’s advising page.
2
By College with Department Links
General advising info at the college level with links to each department’s advising page.
3
By Department
Listing out all of the departments, ensuring students didn’t have to know their college affiliation to find their advising resources.
3
By Department
Listing out all of the departments, ensuring students didn’t have to know their college affiliation to find their advising resources.
3
By Department
Listing out all of the departments, ensuring students didn’t have to know their college affiliation to find their advising resources.
Choosing the Best Student Experience
Choosing the Best Student Experience
We chose to organize the site by department because it offered the most intuitive and streamlined experience for students, minimizing the number of clicks needed to find advising information. From previous projects and conversations with students, faculty, and staff, we knew that many students aren’t aware of which college their department belongs to. Categorizing by department helped eliminate this common point of confusion and reduced friction in the navigation process.
This structure also allowed us to create a dedicated advising page for each department, hosted on their respective sites but linked directly from the main advising hub. While each page was categorized under its college, the direct department-first approach ensured students could easily locate and access the information they needed.
Each department’s advising page included:
Advisor contact information
Advising processes
Forms and important links
This approach provided a balance between centralized organization and departmental autonomy, giving departments control over their content while ensuring a consistent and user-friendly experience for students.
We chose to organize the site by department because it offered the most intuitive and streamlined experience for students, minimizing the number of clicks needed to find advising information. From previous projects and conversations with students, faculty, and staff, we knew that many students aren’t aware of which college their department belongs to. Categorizing by department helped eliminate this common point of confusion and reduced friction in the navigation process.
This structure also allowed us to create a dedicated advising page for each department, hosted on their respective sites but linked directly from the main advising hub. While each page was categorized under its college, the direct department-first approach ensured students could easily locate and access the information they needed.
Each department’s advising page included:
Advisor contact information
Advising processes
Forms and important links
This approach provided a balance between centralized organization and departmental autonomy, giving departments control over their content while ensuring a consistent and user-friendly experience for students.
Handling the S&T Advising Center’s Unique Role
Handling the S&T Advising Center’s Unique Role
The S&T Advising Center supports first-year, first-year transfer, and undeclared students, but its name can be misleading as it suggests the center serves all students. Since renaming the center wasn’t an option, I addressed this confusion by only linking to their information within the advising by program section. This approach made it clear who the center serves and prevented students from encountering the name elsewhere on the site.
The S&T Advising Center supports first-year, first-year transfer, and undeclared students, but its name can be misleading as it suggests the center serves all students. Since renaming the center wasn’t an option, I addressed this confusion by only linking to their information within the advising by program section. This approach made it clear who the center serves and prevented students from encountering the name elsewhere on the site.
Outcome & Next Steps
Outcome & Next Steps
We successfully launched the advising website in February 2025, focusing on core functionality to meet the deadline ahead of the summer semester. The site is continuing to evolve, with additional features such as sample degree plans for each department currently in development.
Later this year, we plan to conduct research with students to evaluate how well the site is meeting their needs, identify any pain points, and find areas where it can be improved.
We successfully launched the advising website in February 2025, focusing on core functionality to meet the deadline ahead of the summer semester. The site is continuing to evolve, with additional features such as sample degree plans for each department currently in development.
Later this year, we plan to conduct research with students to evaluate how well the site is meeting their needs, identify any pain points, and find areas where it can be improved.