Brigham Young University - Idaho
Simplifying class registration into a one-click solution
Quick overview ✨
I led the design of an AI-powered schedule tool that saved 20,000+ students 4.5 hours in planning & registration by auto-planning required courses in one click. It greatly reduced registration stress and supported 6,000 new freshmen during the university’s Fall 2025 growth.
Growth on campus leads to more friction
With a 6.7% enrollment increase marking BYU-Idaho’s largest incoming class in history, it became essential to support students in navigating their academic journey. The most critical touchpoint? Class registration. Our team was approached with a simple challenge: “Students are struggling to register. How can we make this better for them?”.
BYU-Idaho's record growth for Fall 2025, read full article.
A registration system so old your grandma used it
We can't replace this legacy system
After investigating potential improvements, it became clear the system wasn’t going anywhere, it would cost millions to replace and take years to transition.
Current registration system search results page
Student pain points with current registration system
🔎 Search functionality is confusing and tedious
📝 Students quickly become impatient with the learning curve of the legacy system
🧐 System does not give clear instructions on registration dates, deadlines and restrictions
⛓️💥 There is no connection to a student's graduation plan and registration
🤬 Problematic UI issues that don’t save progress and cause user errors
Discovering a gap in users experience
Students were coming up with their own solutions
We needed an interim solution between graduation planning and registration. This new tool would live within the Graduation Planner as a separate, integrated module.
🗒️ 75% of students
from qualitative survey reported they plan their courses for the next semester on post-its, paper scraps or Excel sheets.
Introducing the "Class Schedule Tool"
We pulled together a team from advising, registration, data systems, development, project management, and web design. Working together, we focused on solving real student problems while simplifying internal processes.
The result became the “Class Schedule Tool,” built with seven key features to make registration easier.
📆 Plan for semesters in advance
As soon as classes become available, the Class Schedule Tool lets students start planning ahead, ensuring they’re ready when registration opens.
📚 Easily educate about registration
Students can view their registration date and prepare in advance, reducing confusion.
✨ Ai auto-schedule courses
Automatically schedule all planned courses with one click, working around personal time and selected classes. This feature works at both the course and section level.
🗓️ Personal time blocks
Students can block out work hours or personal commitments and instantly see open time slots in a weekly or list view.
👉 Planning directly from required courses
The tool connects with the Graduation Planner, allowing students to plan independently or work seamlessly between the two systems.
🔗 Direct linking to legacy registration system
Bypassing the confusing class search, the tool links directly to course and section codes letting students register in one simple click.
✅ Exporting to school or personal calendars
Students can export their final schedule as an image, to the university calendar, or directly to a personal calendar app.
👨🏻🏫 Filtering class sections by teacher, time, type or day
Advanced filtering options include instructor, meeting time, delivery type, and day of the week making it easy to find the perfect schedule.
Beta testing our struggling users…freshmen
User testing 6,000 freshman beta testers
User testing was vital to making sure we were heading in the right direction. Each change and feature was tested and refined based on feedback.
Once ready, we launched a beta release to 6,000 freshmen, giving us valuable insight into how students actually used and experienced the tool.
"It was easy to move courses around and see what I courses wanted to take at different times visually. I also liked that I was able to put in placeholders for other commitments, like work."
- Sarah K., Freshman
"It’s convenient to see what classes are available to pick from and extremely helpful to plan to prepare to register for classes."
- Richard L., Freshman
"To put it succinctly: it was fast, organized, and simple. Very intuitive program."
- Sam H., Freshman
Room for improvement from beta testing
⏳ Long load times during peak usage made it difficult for students to access the tool.
↪️ Students requested additional refresh options, including “Refresh All” and “Refresh Course.”
🧐 Many students reported difficulty finding the tool during the beta release.
Improvements made from feedback
Greater user load and data refresh revamp: Increased load limits and optimized data refresh to ensure faster, more reliable performance.
Expanded refresh options: Added new refresh settings to clear personal events, planned courses, or reset the entire list with one click.
Improved accessibility: Updated the student portal, email communication, and other key touchpoints to make the tool easier to find and access across platforms.
The outcomes
High adoption, low stress
Beta testing is still underway, but feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and confidence in the tool’s impact remains high.
From our 6,000 beta testers, the Class Schedule Tool has already improved the overall student experience reducing stress and making registration simpler and more intuitive.
👍🏻
85% of freshman
surveyed said they would use this tool to plan for their future semester courses
✅
67% of students
added to beta used this tool to plan and register for their classes
Lowered stress
Surveys of 300 students showed a clear decrease in class-planning stress and confusion.
Simplified registration
Qualitative interviews with 24 students revealed greater understanding of registration timelines and requirements.
What I learned
This project spanned over two years of planning, design, testing, and implementation. I was involved through every stage of the UX process—from discovery to launch.
Documentation is king: I learned that clearly documenting decisions, functionality, and processes pays off immensely in the long run. Because we followed a waterfall approach, our team had to be meticulous in our designs and we ended up delivering exactly what we planned.
Compromise is inevitable: There were also several technical limitations that caused user frustration, and addressing those early was critical to a successful launch. I learned that compromise is key, understanding the tool’s scope and purpose helped us decide what was essential and what we could go without.
