Research Link

TimeLine

9 months

role

Product Designer & Researcher

tools

Figma & Framer

WITH

Michael Li
Sonia Batheja
Urszula Oszczapinska
Kyla Anderson
Ananya Sriram

Overview

Research opportunities at Carnegie Mellon are highly decentralized, making it difficult for undergraduates to find and navigate them. Our team designed an interactive learning module that centralizes information and guides students through the research discovery process in a clear, approachable way.

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My Role

As Product Designer & Researcher, I led user interviews, contextual inquiries, and usability tests to identify pain points in the current system. I synthesized findings into journey maps and insights that informed design decisions. I then created wireframes and interactive prototypes in Figma, iterating based on feedback to deliver an intuitive and accessible experience that helps students confidently pursue research opportunities.

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01. Problem statement

How can we help undergraduate students apply to on-campus research opportunities that align with their professional interests?

02. Learning How CMU currently present their undergraduate research vs. other universities

What CMU Can Learn from Others

Interviews with 3 OURSD staff says...

03. Learning from the Student’s Successes and Failures with finding research

Learning from the Student Body

Our team sent out a survey to undergraduate students at CMU to gather insights into the current process that CMU undergraduates experience with finding research. We received 32 responses across 8 different schools at CMU. We also conducted a think aloud study to simulate the initial process of looking for research, from the initial curiosity of what research is to pinpointing a few specific projects they want to participate in and understand who they can contact the individual in charge. We hope through this we could observe the process and understand painpoints and priorities students have during each stage of the process.

04. Using card sorting to understand how users mentally group tasks

Since our product was going to be a website with a lot of content and resources, we want to make sure that people could navigate and find what they are looking for quickly. We don't want to be like the CMU research websites...

We conducted a open/close hybrid card sorting activity. We knew what content would be in our product and what category it could fall under. But the participants were given the freedom to create a category if needed.

From our card sorting, I was able to map out information architecture to help guide what pages we would need and how navigation would work.

05. Exploring multiple layout directions quickly to test assumptions

Based on our sitemap we made, we made a low-fi prototype to user testing. We wanted to make sure the flow makes sense and is what the user expects of the page to match.

06. Adjusting the prototype to align with user expectation and increase ease of navigation

Expanding the sitemap

From our feedback, we made changes to our sitemap to reflect that and improve navigability.

Information felt too nested
Change: 2 pages → 3 pages
Emphasize importance of ‘Checklist’
Change: Intentional about the organization of information and hierarchy

Wireframe Changes

A lot of participants emphasized the implied importance of a preparation checklist and they stated that they would go check the checklist as one of their first resources. In our low-fi prototype, important information were too nested which is exactly what CMU's website are. We don't want that, so we brought the checklist page to the home page.

When observing the participants' actions and words, we realized that some resources are more likely to be view/prioritized. So we reflected that through visual hierarchy.

The checklist is to guide students through a step by step process to prepare to apply to research opportunities. But the question format was confusing on exact the task was, so we changed the wording to be a statement/phrases.

Key Takeaways

Affinity clustering revealed three main takeaways: students generally had the right expectations for what each page would provide, effective visual hierarchy helped them navigate and understand content, and the density of information along with wording choices significantly shaped their comprehension. These insights emphasized the importance of balancing clarity, structure, and language in the prototype.

07. final deliverables

Research Link: An interactive web module that serves as a centralized hub, guiding students through every step of finding and applying to undergraduate research.

Home Page

A hub where you can find everything you need to prepare to apply to undergraduate research.

What is Research at CMU

Highlights how research varies by discipline and directs users to explore opportunities by selecting their department.

Preparation Checklist

Provides a checklist that guides a step-by-step preparation process for securing a research position.

Templates

Offers a collection of email and resume templates with examples to help students confidently prepare their application materials.

People

Provides resources connecting students to dedicated staff and advisors who can support them in finding and applying for research opportunities.

reflection

Working in ResearchLink was my first ever experience launching a product 0 to 1 and that's invaluable. Thank you to my team of wonderful people and thank you to OURSD for partnering with us and allowing us to share this tool to so many undergraduate students at CMU!