Eugene Park

University of Toronto Scarborough
Admissions Website 
Design time frame 
4-5 Months2025
Kalamuna Partner
University of Toronto Role
UI, UX Design
 





Project Kalamuna is partnering with the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) to redesign its Admissions website, focusing on improving the user experience (UX) and navigational pathways to enhance enrollment. 

Mission & Visions For End User:
To create a prospective student-centered, single source of truth for admission to U of T Scarborough that highlights its program offerings, strengths, and identity. This aims to empower prospective students to make informed decisions and successfully navigate their admissions journey.

For the Organization:
To improve student numbers at every critical point of the admissions cycle, specifically focusing on increasing application volume and improving yield (the number of students accepting offers) and reducing melt (the loss of students after acceptance).



PROJECT SCOPE

Research

  • Desk Research including Material Review
  • Stakeholder Interviews
  • Content Audit 
  • UX Audit
  • Analytics Analysis    
  • Define User Types & Goals   
  • Strategic Recommendations
Information Architecture

  • Content Mapping     
  • Information Architecture    
  • Low-fidelity Wireframes    
  • A/B Test
  • Tree Test
Design

  • High-fidelity Wireframes
  • A/B Test
  • Interactive Prototypes
  • Branding
  • Deisgn System and Guideline


My Role As the Senior Designer, I led the project end-to-end, working closely with another Kalamuna designer, PM, and developers along with one U of T UX designer. Despite a tight timeline and limited budget, I focused on clear priorities and efficient communication to deliver the strongest possible outcome.

Alongside producing key visual design samples for the three most important pages, I elevated the overall design system; introducing new grid structures and updated text styles and colors. I also partnered with the U of T brand design team to shape a Scarborough-appropriate visual direction and provided UX principles and guidelines to support long-term design alignment.


UX RESEARCH 






Desk Research with Comprehensive Material ReviewU of T’s design team had completed extensive user studies but the overall Admissions and Scarborough sites were so large that the client wasn’t sure where to begin. Our deeper review revealed additional pain points, along with significant UX and structural issues across the site, which helped us define a clear starting point and project focus.

Stateholder Interviews Interviews with three stakeholders to clarified core needs, pain points, and opportunities that shaped the U of T Scharborough Admissions website.

1. User Needs & Goals

Organizational & Website Goals
• Increase domestic/international enrollment and improve admit-to-enroll conversion.
• Encourage more admitted students to choose UTSC as their first choice.
• Improve usability and program discovery.
• Clearly communicate UTSC’s unique strengths (co-op, community, identity).
• Convey a distinct and memorable UTSC brand.

Prospective Student Needs
• Easy, intuitive program search with useful filters.
• Clear admission/grade requirements tailored to context.
• Understand program content, career paths, and campus life.
• Quick access to tuition and financial aid info.

2.Pain Points

  • UTSC is often viewed as a “backup” to the downtown campus.
  • Program discovery and admission clarity are the biggest challenges due to scattered information.
  • Fragmented website ecosystem causes confusion.
  • Limited staff capacity slows content and feature development.
  • Technical constraints within the current Drupal CMS.

3. Insights & Opportunities

  • Build a stronger, distinct UTSC identity focused on diversity, community, and co-op.
  • Prioritize a powerful Program Finder and clearer, more scannable program pages.
  • Focus resources on high-impact areas: IA, program discovery, accessibility, and reusable components.
  • Strengthen content to highlight program value, career outcomes, and student experience.
  • Clarify the Admissions site's role and guide users seamlessly to external platforms (OUAC, Next Steps).
  • Long-term: merge the separate Future Students site into the main Admissions site.






Content Inventory and UX AuditWe conducted a full UX and heuristic audit of the Admissions website to identify recurring UX patterns, pinpoint repeated usability issues, and assess structural gaps across pages. This included reviewing navigation flows, content hierarchy, interaction patterns, and overall clarity of the site’s information. We also completed a detailed content review to understand inconsistencies and opportunities for consolidation.

Based on these findings, we developed a guiding document outlining Strategic IA, navigation improvements, and key design recommendations. These insights formed the foundation for the new IA and overall design direction.





User Type and  GoalsWe identified the key user types and clarified their primary goals. This helped us understand what each group needed most from the Admissions site and informed our priorities before shaping the new IA and content strategy. 

The primary user groups include prospective students, current students, parents of prospective students, and guidance counsellors. 

Here are some of the most important goals we found.

  • Easily and intuitively find information on programs and/or areas of study that interest me
  • Search and filter programs by areas of interest
  • Search and filter programs by prerequisites
  • Search and filter programs by admission averages
  • Review career and employment prospects after graduation
  • Provide step‑by‑step instructions for transcript submission
  • Verify program differentiators (accreditation, co‑op, reputation)
  • Apply to a program (via a UTSC link going to OUAC)
  • Find out how to attend an on-campus event, and register
  • See the entire application process and all deadlines at a glance
... ongoing...


INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE


IA of Previous Website



New IA




Information ArchitectureThe new content map was developed through eight rounds of iteration, incorporating feedback from both stakeholders and user testing. Through continuous refinement, we clarified relationships between pages, simplified overly complex page groups, and exposed gaps in the original architecture. 

The previous structure made it difficult for users to locate key information, so we redefined the first-level menu labels and consolidated lower-level pages. High-priority sections such as Programs, Applying, and Finances were elevated to the top level to match how users naturally search for information.

These decisions were validated through guerrilla testing with real students, ensuring they could understand the structure, infer where information should live, and successfully locate the pages they needed.


LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES






Low Fidelity Wireframes We created low-fidelity wireframes including overall IA navigation structure, and the three core pages, Homepage, Program Page, and Program Detail Page. 

Through multiple rounds of user feedback and iternation, we refined these wireframes to determine the most intuitive structure, content placement, and decision pathways for prospective students.



HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES AND PROTOTYPES


Selected Design



Hi-fidelity wireframes

 Through multiple meetings with the U of T brand design team and U of T Scarborough, we developed and tested several visual design concepts before finalizing the direction with client feedback and user feedback.

We then delivered a comprehensive set of reusable components with production guidelines, which served as the foundation for U of T’s internal team to build out the remaining pages. 


Desktop prototypes

Mobile prototypes




Design System  


U of T’s existing design system was underdeveloped. It relied on a 10px Bootstrap grid and text styles locked to a rigid 10px scale (e.g., 50px, 40px, 30px), making it difficult to create a refined, scalable, and mobile-friendly design.

I recommended shifting to an 8px-based system and introduced a new typescale to improve usability and visual consistency. Despite tight time and budget constraints, the client approved this direction, enabling us to deliver a more flexible and future-ready design foundation.

The updated system followed atomic design principles. Because the team was not familiar with design systems, I also created an onboarding guide, annotation guide, index, and clearly separated style and component pages so designers and developers could easily adopt and maintain the system.

Conclusion
&Reflection

This project felt like a marathon run side-by-side with the client, navigating constraints, resolving unexpected blockers, and continuously adapting as we moved forward together. Understanding users’ needs and goals, then distilling what truly mattered from an overwhelming amount of existing content, was both the challenge and the reward. 

Through close collaboration and thoughtful prioritization, we delivered a more intuitive, scalable Admissions experience that better supports students and aligns with U of T Scarborough’s long-term vision.