CULPA
Columbia’s only professor & course review site.
Project type
Professor review web platform
Role
Lead UX/UI designer
Product manager
Administrator
Team
Philippe W. , Director (former)
Nithin C., Louis Z., Vincent Z., and other Spectator product designers
Timeline
September 2022 - December 2023
CULPA is Columbia University's only professor and course review site, but by 2020 it had become inaccessible and neglected both by its developers and users.
After its acquisition by the Spectator Publishing Company in 2022, I stepped in as the lead product designer and manager.
I spearheaded initiatives to restore and improve the platform. This included new feature ideation and design, database revamping, launch efforts, and ongoing management.
My goal was to ensure the platform could better serve the diverse needs of Columbia students.
Accomplishment:
Design
*Find discussion of design process in sections below
Redesigned a review submission flow that responds dynamically to specific user scenario, resulting in greater usability and more accurate entries
Quotes submission
Newest Reviews Dashboard
Re-launch efforts
Led cross-functional collaboration between Engineering and Revenue teams to successfully restore and relaunch CULPA.
Management
Developed launch strategies responsive to campus discourse and created long-term protocols for site management, including review moderation and monetization strategies.
Conducted in-depth user research to identify product pain points & student needs. Accordingly ideated and delivered 3 new features:
Syllabi submission
Database & functionality
Identified CULPA’s key database issues and collaborated with the engineers to establish a more comprehensive structure.
Conducted stress testing to ensure a bug-free user experience and functional administrative review processing
Achievements:
Quote Submission + 64%
Engagement + 22%
User Acquisition + 11%
Design Process
Review submission & approval flow
(Fall 2022)
The review submission process is CULPA’s core experience, so it must be intuitive and comprehensive.
Problem
The previous review submission flow did not allow users to review professors or courses missing in the database.
Goal
I want to enable adding new professors and courses while ensuring the database's accuracy through admin approval.
Challenge
Redesign the review submission flow to accommodate all scenarios while maintaining CULPA’s database accuracy.
Enable users to suggest new professors and courses.
Provide administrators with tools to verify or reject new entries for accuracy.
Solution
I started by mapping out all possible review submission scenarios and actions. My goal was to create a user flow that intuitively addresses each one from the user's perspective.
*click to enlarge any image on the site
5 scenario identified
Accordingly, I prototyped the ideal interface & dynamic interaction to accommodate all five scenarios, enabling users to add new professors or courses only when necessary.
The Admin portal
To support users' ability to add new professors and courses, I expanded the admin portal with new categories for verification and approval.
The new review submission flow enables users to intuitively add information while allowing administrators to verify its accuracy before it’s added to the database.
Syllabi & quotes submission
(Fall 2023)
These features seem underwhelming, perhaps.
But they address an incredible number of user needs, backed by our extensive research.
Interview guide I created for the team
Syllabi submissions were born from the idea of consolidating scattered resources into one place.
Empathizing with users
To deliver new features with maximized impact, I need to understand how do different Columbia students choose classes
An advantage for designing products for students is that we designers are also users ourselves. However, if we don't investigate how other students approach the same tasks, we risk being confined by our team's limited perspective.
We conducted contextual interviews: Instead of asking close-ended questions, we observed students research courses in real-time. By noting their information sources beyond CULPA, we uncovered gaps and identified other information students needed.
… and asked ourselves how might CULPA provide more information students seek.
Ideation
Through ~20 interviews, we distilled students' root needs for course planning.
I hosted an ideation session to brainstorm features solving these needs. These ideas are arranged in an affinity diagram.
Key takeaway:
Students seek insights in addition to experience-based reviews, such as:
Quantitive information about course difficulty
- e.g. curve, grading components (attendance, midterms, papers, etc.)
teaching style
whether it satisfies as a major requirement
…etc.
Some ideated features resulting form these needs:
Curated professor tags (of attributes students care most) reviewers can assign with
Banner showing a course’s pre-requisite or major requirement status
These are promising features, but as an organization handling multiple products, implementing each one might take longer than a semester.
Prioritizing a quicker way, I realized syllabi already cover much of what students need.
Accessing syllabi is often challenging for students not registered for the course.
To bridge this gap, we introduced a syllabi submission feature, making crucial details available to all.
Additionally, we added quote/impression feature to provide casual, direct impressions of professors students often seek on channels like Reddit & Sidechat.
“Newest Reviews” dashboard
(Spring 2023)
I designed a "Newest Reviews" dashboard to showcase timely updates to signal CULPA's active status despite its past neglect and encourage more review submissions.
During peak seasons, it reassures awaiting users that their entries are being published promptly.
Old homepage
New homepage
Page UI revamp
(Fall 2023, waiting implementation)
I redesigned CULPA’s visual hierarchy to prioritize wanted actions from user
Current Interface Issues:
Accent colors overuse: overwhelming interface.
Action buttons are poorly aligned and not located near their relevant content, adding cognitive load for users.
Excessive spacing. Elements too far apart breake visual continuity.
New Interface Improvements:
Removed non-essential accent colors to focus on immediate actions.
Action buttons are aligned & located adjacent to their target content, enhancing user interaction.
Refine spacing, improved cohesiveness.
My Learnings
Research to identify needs for target user
Gaining thorough understanding of target user’s behaviors and preferences gave me clear design goals and visions.
Prioritize tasks, accomplish most with the least resources
This mindset enabled me to develop more effective UX strategies and ship enhancements sooner.