University of Oklahoma: Faculty & Student Platform
A unified digital experience
Enhanced the University of Oklahoma’s digital portal experience, creating a more intuitive interface for students and faculty and implementing a design system to ensure consistency and maintainability. When I joined this project, the University of Oklahoma was working toward a major digital transformation. Across its campuses, students, faculty, and administrators all relied on separate, outdated systems — many of them manual — to complete essential tasks like enrollment, advising, and communication. I was brought in to help define and shape what would become OU’s ONE Platform — a unified digital experience designed to serve everyone in the university ecosystem.
Client
The University of Oklahoma
Services
Visual Design UI & UX Design Prototyping Mentoring
Industries
Ed-Tech
Date
2018-2019
Overview
When I joined this project, the University of Oklahoma was working toward a major digital transformation. Across its campuses, students, faculty, and administrators all relied on separate, outdated systems — many of them manual — to complete essential tasks like enrollment, advising, and communication.
I was brought in as a Product Designer to help define and shape what would become OU’s ONE Platform — a unified digital experience designed to serve everyone in the university ecosystem.
The Challenge
OU’s digital experience had evolved in silos. Over time, each department had created its own tools and interfaces to meet specific needs, which led to redundancy, inefficiency, and a fractured user experience.
Faculty struggled with inconsistent tools, students found core services confusing, and support teams were constantly bridging gaps between systems.
The broader challenge wasn’t just a redesign — it was about creating a unified foundation that could scale across the university and endure as part of OU’s digital legacy.
My Role
As a Product Designer, I helped lead design strategy and implementation efforts throughout the project’s nine-month timeline. My focus included:
Defining a consistent product language and design system that could scale across applications.
Translating research insights into design principles and reusable components.
Collaborating with engineers, product managers, faculty, students, and support teams.
Leading validation and usability testing for key workflows.
Supporting implementation and rollout across multiple user groups.
Process
1. Discovery & Research
We began with foundational research to understand how each user group — students, faculty, and administrators — interacted with existing systems.
Conducted 45+ stakeholder interviews and 3 system audits to identify pain points.
Collected 500+ survey responses about satisfaction, clarity, and usability.
Found that 68% of users described current processes as “confusing” or “inefficient.”
These insights helped us prioritize simplifying workflows, improving accessibility, and creating consistent interaction patterns across all applications.
2. Design & Validation
We built iterative prototypes to explore navigation models and layouts that could adapt across user types and devices.
Ran bi-weekly usability sessions with rotating student, faculty, and staff groups.
Measured task success rate, completion time, and System Usability Scale (SUS) scores.
Improved SUS from 59 → 83 (poor → excellent).
Reduced average task time (e.g., course enrollment, dashboard actions) by 27%.
Each iteration refined clarity, way finding, and content hierarchy — ensuring a single design language could meet the needs of all users.
3. Building the Design System
In parallel, I helped define and build OU’s first university-wide design system, establishing visual and functional consistency across digital products.
Created 60+ reusable components and 8 flexible layout templates.
Built accessibility-first standards (WCAG 2.1 compliant).
Delivered a Figma library and documentation for design and engineering alignment.
Reduced new feature design time by 40% after rollout.
This system became the visual and structural foundation for future OU digital products.
4. Implementation & Launch
I collaborated closely with engineering to ensure accurate, accessible implementation.
The platform was piloted across five departments before the university-wide rollout. Post-launch analytics showed:
30% reduction in support tickets for enrollment and account issues.
25% improvement in first-time task completion rates.
18% decrease in average support handling time.
The ONE Platform quickly became the central hub for students, faculty, and administrators — consolidating what used to be six or more separate systems.
Impact
Unified a fragmented ecosystem into a single scalable platform serving 100,000+ users.
Reduced redundant, manual workflows by 35%.
Increased user satisfaction from 3.1 → 4.6 (out of 5).
Established a lasting design system and product language still used across OU’s technology stack today.
Reflection
This project was a turning point for OU’s digital identity — a chance to unify decades of disconnected systems into one cohesive platform.
For me, it was about more than UX. It was about building something that would last, something that connects people and simplifies how they work, teach, and learn.
Contributing to a platform that now supports the daily work of thousands across the university — and stands as part of the legacy of OU — has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.
