Undergraduate Advising Web Application

Topic Introduction

The topic of this project will be undergraduate advising at the University of Washington. Currently, the University of Washington has a multitude of undergraduate schools and departments, each with their own websites. In order for students to book appointments with these department-specific advisors, they must navigate to a unique website of the respective department. This is a cumbersome and inefficient process for those exploring many different majors.

Existing Solutions

A web app we believe attempts to reconcile this issue is the general undergraduate advising website. It takes some digging, but you can eventually find a list of all the departments at UW with contact information for each of the advising offices. However, this resource is outdated. The department link only takes you to the information in the student guide instead of the official website for appointment booking, and while the page provides the email, phone number, and building of each advising office, these are inefficient means for scheduling advising appointments.

Users

The users of the application will be undergraduate students at the University of Washington who want to book an appointment with advisors.

Information View and User Interactions

Users will be viewing a modern interface of tiles corresponding to general advising and departments categorized by their respective schools. They will be able to quickly navigate to the websites of the department they wish to schedule an appointment with by hovering and clicking on a tile. Once a tile is clicked, more information will be displayed to show the advisors for that department/school and links directing to their scheduling website.

Listed below are user interactions we will implement in our application:

• A search bar at the top of the page to find undergraduate schools, departments, and advisor names. This will filter the number of tiles shown.
• Add multiple schools/departments on their virtual list for users interested in scheduling multiple appointments or exploring multiple majors.
• Hover feature over tiles so users can look at brief information from a school/department, such as a list of advisors in that school/department.

Our Solution

We believe our app will help alleviate some of the issues posed by the existing undergraduate advising website by providing students with a more focused platform for their advising needs. The existing site can be overwhelming in its organization and magnitude of information it provides. Our app will be simple and purposeful in design, enabling any undergraduate student to book advising appointments and have their questions answered in as few clicks as possible.