Designing the PhD Hub website for NYU Tandon
Role
UX Designer
Web Developer
(ad-hoc basis)
Timeline
Aug 2022 - Aug 2024
Team
2 UX Designers
2 Program Directors
NYU Engineering Team
Tools
Figma
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Google Analytics
Quick Overview
The Problem -
A million tabs, zero clarity -
NYU students struggled to find key resources for their PhD journey.
the solution -
All in One Place: The PhD Hub Website
impact
And solving this mattered because, within the first 6 months:
Admins spent 40% less time answering questions.
Workshop participants increased by 2x.
Site traffic went up by 55% as students found information 50% faster.
Student satisfaction rate for collaborations and events - 40% higher.
action
What led to the solution?
User interviews
Student Focus Groups
"Lunch and Learn" workshops
Prototyping and usability testing - iterative
Web Development
👀 Peek Behind the Scenes
CONTEXT
Lost and looking! PhD students couldn’t find resources. Admins felt the strain.
It all started with a simple question -
Why aren’t PhD students signing up for events or workshops?
I began investigating this problem by interviewing PhD students, department heads and admins.
Below are some of the key findings:
Information was scattered everywhere!
PhD students struggle to find relevant academic resources, events, and support services in one location.
Students were unaware
A lot of times, students weren't even aware of events happening or services available to them.
Reaching out to admins for everything
Overwhelmed students sought admin help, but it wasn’t always feasible.
Frustration + disengagement
Finding information was frustrating which led to students wanting to disengage from available resources.
The Challenge
How might we help PhD students quickly find what they need in one centralized location?
RESEARCH
I led two student focus groups which helped me understand specific needs and possible actions.
Overview of student focus groups:
Duration: 1 hour each
Participants: 4 PhD students from different programs (anonymized)
Click to see focus group takeaways and possible action for each.
Lunch & Learn - Defining the website needs with admin depts over sandwiches
The Goal?
Gather insights on student needs, available resources, and department priorities.
The Result?
Feedback from students and administrators shaped the website’s requirements.
My team and I collaborated with Jamie Lloyd, Assistant Director at PhD Hub, to refine student resources on the website, holding meetings with her and the Director for feedback on our design throughout the process.
Now that I had all the information, it was time to map out the design.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Making sense of the mess - how I structured the site map
Card sorting to the rescue!
For every iteration:
Participants: students, staff, admin, faculty, finance team.
Duration: 40 min
It took some refining (and a lot of coffee), but we finally designed the site map as seen below!
PROTOTYPING
I wireframed and prototyped the website using NYU's UI Kit and Figma
USABILITY TESING
Are the users finding what they need? - Let's test.
Three rounds of testing lasting 2 hours with:
- PhD Students
- PhD Staff
- PhD Administrators
Click to see user testing structure and some resulted design changes
FINAL DESIGN
After multiple tweaks and testing - ta-da! Here's the final website with most impactful features highlighted
Offer early summer orientation for life in New York: advice on housing and banking on the website.
Provide a checklist for paperwork, deadlines, and housing, with contact info for international student support.
A list of all fellowship opportunities available and applicable for students with different needs.
Details of past and upcoming social events exclusively for PhD Students at NYU Tandon.
Academic, Professional Development, Research, and Student Engagement Resources.
An FAQ page for academic and administrative queries.
REFLECTIONS
Turning feedback chaos into clarity
Integrating feedback was one of the biggest challenges - everything was constantly evolving, and it was easy to get lost in the chaos.
This experience taught me the importance of feature prioritization, ensuring that the most impactful changes were addressed first.
I also learned that aligning all stakeholders early through structured meetings helped streamline decisions and reduce unnecessary back-and-forth.
Most importantly, I realized the power of using data to support design choices turning subjective opinions into objective, actionable insights.
What would I do differently?
Knowing what I know now, I would do the following things differently:
Planning for future scalability.
Consistent process documentation.
Further accessibility considerations.