University of Westminster – Redesigning the Job Seeker’s Page
1 Jan 2024
Role:
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Applied lived experience to advocate for practical, inclusive changes
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Led user interviews
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Led final stakeholder presentation
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Created mid-fi wireframes of suggested new page layout
Original Design
Summary (speed-read approved)
The University of Westminster’s employability and job-seeking page hadn’t been updated or tested in years, making it difficult for students (especially international undergraduates) to find and act on career opportunities. During a one-month placement, I conducted user research, analysed behaviour data, and designed a new high-fidelity wireframe that addressed usability issues. My recommendations were presented to the UX board and later adopted into their live redesign.
The Challenge
The employability and job-seeking webpage is a critical resource for Westminster students, but:
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It hadn’t been updated or tested in years.
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Students reported confusion and were more likely to find jobs elsewhere.
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Analytics showed high drop-off and rage clicks, suggesting the structure didn’t support its users.
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The content and structure was not cohesive with the recent updates to the rest of the site.
With the main goal to affirm the biggest issues with the page (later found to be the structure and bounce rate), I began redesigning by first conducting user research.
Goals
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Simplify navigation and reduce confusion when accessing career resources.
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Ensure content hierarchy aligns with user needs and common workflows.
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Reduce drop-offs and “rage clicks” by making key resources easy to find.
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Maintain consistency with the university’s existing brand identity and digital ecosystem.
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Provide a design solution that could be implemented within a short timeframe while remaining flexible for future updates.
Constraints
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I had one month to complete the project.
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Work was conducted under the mentorship of Westminster’s Head UX Designer, but independently executed.
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The solution had to fit the university’s existing digital ecosystem and brand identity.
Research
I used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to discover what the current experience of the page was for the average user.
Research Methods
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User interviews with students to uncover frustrations, likes, and where they dropped off.
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Hotjar session recordings from cookie data to reveal rage clicks, U-turns, and scroll depth.
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Google Analytics to achieve a demographic breakdown (international students compared to UK students, undergrad compared to postgrad students).
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Competitor analysis of employability and job seeker pages from Greenwich, Goldsmiths, UEL, and other competing universities.
Key Insights
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The majority of users were international undergraduates.
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Students felt it too complicated to find the actual job opportunity portal, and had to be coached where to look
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Found repeating and conflicting pages and information throughout the site, often ending up in endless loops trying to find information.
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Career resources weren’t clearly labelled, leading to multiple false clicks.
Students would frequently u-turn from careers and employability page, to employability page and or employability services, with a clear indication they were not finding what they were wanting.
Research Images
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Strategy
I reframed the problem as:
How might we make employability resources more visible and usable for students — especially international undergraduates — without overwhelming them?
From there, I created:
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User personas for undergrad and postgrad demographics.
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A journey map illustrating how students currently searched for resources (where U-turns and frustrations occurred), and an improved journey map of the ideal journey students described they’d like to experience.
Design Process
I moved from insights into redesign concepts:
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Used FigJam for collaborative notes and idea generation.
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Used Jira for task allocation and tracking within the team.
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Explored wireframe options within figma to test navigation and hierarchy.
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Designed a high-fidelity prototype in Figma.
Key changes proposed
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Clearer navigation structure with labelled categories.
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Dedicated pages for requested and frequently used information to prevent repeating information.
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Introduction of a dynamic “success stories” banner instead of a separate page of student success stories, to make content engaging, easier to find, more likely to be read, and also easier to maintain.
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Cleaner visual hierarchy: reduced clutter, better spacing, accessible colour contrast in accordance with WCAG, whilst maintaining brand colours.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframe
User Testing & Iteration
Before finalising my wireframes, I:
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Collaborated with my team as to what their expectations were for the improved page, what content they wanted to ensure was kept at the forefront to blend with their plans for the site going forward
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Created several different iterations of design for overseers of the project to pick from when they decided to make the change in the future
Final Outcome
I presented my findings and designs to the board. The response was enthusiastic with them highlighting how the proposed structure better served their students and simplified resource discovery.
A year later, Westminster implemented a redesigned employability page that incorporated several of my design recommendations.
My Role & Contributions
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Conducted research, analysis, and design independently under guidance of the Head UX Designer and UX team.
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Designed user personas, journey map, and hi-fi wireframes.
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Presented to the design board.
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Learned to efficiently use hotjar, google analytics and Jira in under two weeks.
Impact and Takeaways (no not the deliveroo kind sadly)
This project taught me how to balance data-driven insights with practical design solutions in a real-world institutional setting.
Key Learnings
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Analytics tools (Hotjar, GA) + live interviews are powerful together as they reveal both what happens and why.
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Even small structural changes (navigation labels, hierarchy) can dramatically reduce user friction.
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Presenting to stakeholders taught me how to communicate clearly, not just design effectively.
Tools Used
Figma
Jira
Google Analytics
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Canva
Notion
Hotjar
