menu-squared-2

Overview: Reimagining Data Analytics For Community Colleges

The college data application is designed to deliver actionable insights and analytics to 116 public community colleges in California during its initial phase, with an expansion plan to include 825 additional community colleges across the U.S. This strategic rollout aims for a potential revenue of $2.3M in its first year, transforming analytics and data management in the educational sector.

Problem: The Need For a Complete Application Redesign

The challenge was to thoroughly modernize a prototype data analytics application developed on the Microsoft Power BI platform, specifically tailored for community colleges. The ultimate goal for Intellecta is to be licensed to 941 public U.S. community colleges, providing a robust, scalable solution that moves beyond the limitations of per-seat licensing to a more flexible and economically viable model.

My Role

Lead UX Designer
UX Researcher

Tools

Adobe XD, Miro, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Microsoft Workplace Tools

Strategic Research And Design

My approach centered on rethinking how community college data could be leveraged through a new technology platform. I started by deconstructing the existing Power BI application to identify all its core functionalities and the needs of its users. Key activities included:

User Research And Personal Development: Creating detailed personas to represent the diverse users of the application, from administrative staff to state education grant writers

Designing User Flows: Sketching out new user journey flows to facilitate more intuitive interactions within the application.

Design Vision: Developing new data visualizations and interaction designs that are not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing.

A Complete Application Solution

This application transforms community college data into a comprehensive, interactive analytics visualization suite that provides insights into both college operations and student performance. Key features of the application include:

Insightful Overviews: Administrators can view overarching data on college and student activities, identify trends, and make informed decisions.

User-Friendly Interface: The application allows users to explore specific data sets, such as student demographics or course engagement details, with the ability to drill down into more granular information.

Design Vision: Despite the complexity of the data, the design maintains simplicity in user interactions, making the system easy to navigate and use.

Impact And Implementation

This redesigned application offers a streamlined, single sign-on feature that presents key data immediately upon login —which is particularly useful for high-level decision-makers like college presidents. They can quickly access essential reports on enrollment trends, performance metrics, and other critical indicators. The customizable dashboard allows users to apply various filters and explore specific data points, such as minority admissions and demographic trends, enhancing the decision-making process.

Conclusion

This college project exemplifies my ability to transform a traditional enterprise data application into a modern, user-centric data and analytics tool. This case study demonstrates the successful application of UX principles to create a solution that not only meets the unique needs of community colleges but also offers scalability and economic efficiency in its licensing model.

Design Challenge: My task was to reimagine an existing enterprise data application to allow my company to license it without the constraints of per-seat fees associated with Microsoft. Originally, the application was a Microsoft Power BI prototype utilized by a local community college for comprehensive data analysis, covering various institutional metrics.

User-Centric Design Outcome: The redesigned application is aesthetically pleasing, streamlined, and intuitive. Featuring a single sign-on, it provides a dashboard view tailored for the college president, immediately displaying critical data such as enrollment trends, course performance, and academic success metrics upon login. The interface allows users to customize their view by applying filters and exploring data points such as minority admissions and demographic statistics, enhancing usability and decision-making efficiency.

Back to homepage