NU Graduate Registration

Making grad school registration a lot less burdensome

Scheduling is easy—once you pull all the curriculum information out of unstructured PDFs.

  • Competitive Analysis

    We study your competitors and the best practices beyond your category to establish the baseline users expect, and to find the openings that let you differentiate.

  • Taxonomy

    Using a mix of open and closed card sorting, tree testing, and first-click studies, we build an information architecture people can navigate with confidence.

  • Sketches

    When it comes to bringing ideas to life, the pencil is mightier than the keyboard. And much faster.

  • Prototyping

    If a picture is a thousand words, a high-fidelity prototype is the entire story. Testing with one gets us past hypothetical reactions and into real behavior, the kind of feedback we can actually trust. With AI-assisted prototypes, we go even deeper, real data, real interactions, insight we couldn’t get any other way.

  • Thumbnail Flows

    To create in-depth, omni-channel experiences it’s best to start small. Show the full picture — opportunities, gaps, and all — to problem-solve the right solution.

  • Responsive Design

    We design every feature and flow for every screen it could appear on. The real test isn’t the device, it’s whether every decision still makes sense no matter how someone’s viewing it.

  • Visual Design

    Through imagery, messaging, color and typography, we deliberate over pixels, consistency, readability, contrast, accessibility and creativity.

  • Usability Testing

    We ride-along as users navigate digital experiences while trying to achieve their goals. Sometimes we ask probing questions. Sometimes we just observe. Unearthing friction early costs a conversation. Catching it later could cost the business.

  • Design Handoff

    Final screens, specifications, documentation, and content assets—organized in Figma and AI-ready Markdown so both your developers and their coding tools can move seamlessly from design to build.

The Challenge

Finding the ideal graduate school can be tough. Once you’re there, getting the classes you need should be easy. When it came to navigating Northeastern’s antiquated class registrations system, the experience was anything but simple. Especially when the information you need lives as unstructured data in PDFs buried in multiple sites, and then you have to register in a different one.

Making complex decisions—like how far off a student is from their requirements and what's left—easy to parse through information visualizations
Making complex decisions—like how far off a student is from their requirements and what's left—easy to parse through information visualizations

Our Approach

After gaining a deep understanding of the school’s desires and the students’ needs, we pulled it all together into an easy-to-use, single-page interface that put the power in the student’s hands and gave them a coherent view of their curriculum.

We started off with a simple UX idea: build the experience around the most basic questions students ask when registering for classes. What have I taken so far? What’s next for me? What are the prerequisites I need? And what does my schedule look like?

Then, we asked deeper questions: Where did my transfer credits go? How do I substitute a class? Is my student Visa in good standing? When exactly do I graduate?

This new, single-page application relied on a series of microinteractions to be successful. By creating a full-featured prototype, we were able to present our ideas clearly, test with users through their natural flows, and make critical refinements before entering development.

Once a circuitous, confusing spider web of decisions, registration was transformed into a focused wizard guiding students along the way
Once a circuitous, confusing spider web of decisions, registration was transformed into a focused wizard guiding students along the way

The Results

Giving students new clarity and control over their classes is making them more successful in their studies. The grad students we tested with said it best.

“It feels very consumer-forward. Much easier and more well thought out than a lot of checkout experiences I’ve had.”

“It’s very clear so I can tell what courses I have finished and what I have not, easy to track.”

“I am thrilled that this feature is available for NU students, and I’m sure advisors throughout share the same sentiment.”

We partnered with ZeroDegrees on an ambitious project

…to reimagine the graduate registration experience. In less than two months, the ZD team transformed our requirements into a high-fidelity, testable prototype. That paved the way for a tight ZD and NU development collaboration that we’re able to refine and improve incrementally based on the needs of our students and their academic advisors.

Christine Celli, AVP of Digital Experience, Northeastern University