The University of Lodz 

www.uni.lodz.pl

In 2018 I held the role of UX Lead in Inovatica. I've been working on a project realized for the University of Lodz - one of the main universities in our city. Although I joined the team a bit late (the the business requirements were already agreed), but at the last moment to lead the ux process.

THE CHALLANGE:

Design & develop a new multi-portal (system of web pages) for the University of Lodz, containing main web-page representing the values of the University + 13 consistent webpages for each department. The University is one step ahead of everyone and the design needed to reflect that.  

The values of the University of Lodz are:

INSPIRATION, OPENING TO THE WORLD, SUPPORT

We were not quite sure about the final content of the system. As a UX designer I was there to help, but the new data architecture was not yet dicussed. Moreover, the system had to be universal, giving the possibility to fill in with the data that would be created in the future.

Research & Analysis

Although the business requirements were already defined, when I joined the team I had to take a few steps back. I started with the Research. 

First, I defined the target groups and created personas, including the diversity. Once I had these, I spent some time on analyzing the users needs and their inconvinieces. We still had the old system alive, so it was prettey easy to refer to the existing solution. Together with University team, we conducted the user survers and interviews. 

In our working group we also had the PhD students - they were representing not only the students group, but also the workers group. 

Meanwhile, I prepared the competition analysis and defined the use-cases / user-paths that needed to be covered by the system.

Competition analysis for University of Lodz project

Use cases / user paths for University of Lodz project

During the whole project we've been meeting with the stakeholders every two weeks. I've been conducting the interviews with the stakeholders, analyzing existing solutions, understanding the data architecture. I was really happy with the collaboration not only with Inovatica Team (Technical Analyst, Graphic Designer, Front-End Developer) from the very begining of the project, but also with the Client's Team.  

Ideation 

During one of the workshops I conducted the brainstorm session. I used my favourite method: paper, post-its and marker pens. And the people of course! 

We agreed that the content of the portal is huge (and no possibility to reduce it), as well as the number and kinds of the users. That's why we had to tailor the content to the proper user groups. Together we designed the navigation of the new portal, which become the heart of the whole system. 

Pictures of the ideas / designs for the navigation

The navigation of the whole portal was depending on the role of the user entering the University site, or the desired University department. Based on the selected role or deparment, the portal was presenting contex information related to the previous selection. It was possible to withdraw the choice and go back to the previous view / selection. The other content was "hidden" in the menu, propagated into proper categories. 

The navigation design

The conent of the menu was discussed in details during the workshop with the users, organized in University. Our team took part in the workshop and helped to designed information architecture.

Prototype

We've decided to use Adobe XD for the wireframes, because the tool gives possibilities for creating clickable prototype directly. That fitted perfectly! The stakeholders could understand the ideas and work-flows. Also, IxA could be presented better and they could actually experience it, which was impossible with the sketches. 

Examples of digital wireframes / clickable prototype

We worked on the wireframes / prototype couple of weeks. We performed bunch of iterations making sure that all functionalities are covered. We needed to perform AB tests in a few cases.
We've been testing the prototype internally, with Inovatica Team, and with the stakeholders from the University Team. As the PhD students were involved in the research, they were still colaborating with us providing their insights. 

Once the prototype was ready, we moved to the visual design.
High fidelity designs have been created with collaboration of Design Agency Directors. 

Examples of the high-fidelity designs

I've been working closely with the developers during the implementation of the system. During the process I've been supporting them, creating the small pieces of the visual that were missing or adjusting the IxA to the new visual design. Once the main page was ready, it was launched on the test server and the University employes started to propagate it with the data. It was another round of testing it and veryfing the optimalization and response time. 

The main page of the University of Lodz Multiportal went live in March 2021. The departments sites were still collecting the data to fill in the webpages.