Student Information System
The Company
Infinite Campus is a Student Information System (SIS) serving over 10 million active student users across the United States. This web-based platform offers more than 1,700 tools designed to help teachers and administrators streamline their workflows by digitizing and automating time-consuming tasks, so they can spend more time doing what matters most: educating students.
The Problem
I joined Infinite Campus in June 2024 as part of a three-person UX team supporting 22+ development teams across the full product ecosystem. At the time, UX maturity was low, design patterns were inconsistent, and accessibility was largely unaddressed.
My Role
The projects that follow highlight my ongoing work to raise UX maturity within the organization. This includes embedding with teams, advocating for accessibility, introducing research and design standards, and helping guide the shift toward a more usable, inclusive, and data-informed product strategy.
Design System Improvements
As part of a multi-step process to improve the UX maturity at the company: I spearheaded an initiative to improve the Design System. After speaking with internal stakeholders and individual contributors. I discovered that the design system was out of date, contained inaccurate information, and, according to users was “impossible to find anything.” My first step was to complete a tree test to better organize the Design System menu. I conducted two rounds of tree testing with internal employees to find out how they would categorize design fundamentals, followed by a card sort activity to finalize the menu organization.
Objectives
Solicit feedback on a potential reorganized Design System menu
Identify areas of confusion in organization and terminology
Identify opportunities for education on UX/UI concepts
Methodology
Tree Testing
Utilized a Figma wireframe simulating a nested navigation menu, intentionally stripped of design and branding to minimize distraction
Conducted iterative testing and refinement
Engaged 26 total participants (12 in Round 1, 14 in Round 2), all active users of the Design System
Participants completed 10 tasks involving locating information relevant to common scenarios at Infinite Campus
Encouraged natural interaction with the prototype as they would with the real Design System
Card Sorting
Informed by insights from Tree Testing
Executed a card sort activity involving 60 participants to further validate and refine menu organization and terminology choices
Takeaways:
Participants were able to complete the tasks in round 2 significantly better than in round 1 and most noted an improvement from the current state. The card sort analysis showed significant alignment on the topic names with their categories. Participants grouping of the cards aligned with our proposed menu over 83% of the time.
After testing, I shared these results with stakeholders and leadership and offered a plan for next steps. We had learned how users expect to see the design system organized, as well as identified areas of opportunity for internal education to close knowledge gaps. These gaps would be addressed in a series of UX education lessons that I would curate and lead.
