Carta, Stanford University’s course exploration and planning platform, serves as an invaluable resource for 95% of undergraduates, helping them make informed, data-driven decisions to craft their educational paths.

As a designer on Carta’s team, one of the projects I took ownership over was the Sidebar feature, a key touchpoint enabling students to access their upcoming quarter's weekly schedule at any point during the course exploration process.

In Carta V1, the Sidebar persisted across the site. It included a time-block view of the student’s schedule, a checklist of pinned courses that could be hidden or removed from the quarter overview, estimated time commitment, and number of pinned units.

In preparation for Carta V2, the team needed to pare down the site to focus on its most essential features, which brought the Sidebar's future into question. No prior research or testing had been conducted to determine whether students actually relied on the Sidebar for course planning. Some members strongly advocated for it while others felt it occupied valuable screen real-estate that could be better utilized, and engineers were hesitant to rebuild it without clear evidence of its value.

To assess the Sidebar’s usage, I sent out a survey to various university mailing lists and campus group chats. 68 respondents gave insight into the percentage of students using the Sidebar, their primary purposes for using it, and the Sidebar’s importance to their academic planning.

The survey revealed that a majority of students used the Sidebar to some extent, supporting the decision to keep it for those who want to utilize it. However, opinions on its importance were mixed, raising questions about which aspects of the Sidebar fell short compared to other tools students found more useful.

To explore this further, I interviewed four Stanford undergraduates from various years, gaining insights into their processes when crafting their academic schedules. These findings informed a Sidebar redesign, not only securing the its place in future iterations of Carta but also enhancing it to better meet student needs.

I conducted a competitive analysis to research the main interfaces students use to plan their quarter.

SimpleEnroll is a feature within Stanford’s official course enrollment platform. Students can “Plan” classes they want to take and then officially “Enroll” in them when enrollment opens.

• Enrolled classes show up as time blocks = intuitive visualization
• Classes that are planned but not enrolled in are hidden by default = reduces visual overload
• Class logistics appear when hovering over a time block

• The quarter overview is pushed below the fold when lots of classes are pinned to the top
• All course sections are automatically added = visually overwhelming

• Integrated the new Saved feature via the “View Saved” button, giving students quick access to a folder of saved classes to add to their quarter.

From this project, I gained valuable experience and insight into each stage of the design process and learned to advocate for design changes, even if not in the original scope. As a fellow Stanford student and Carta user, the project felt particularly meaningful. I felt a direct connection to my peers, helping them navigate the challenging and often overwhelming task of planning their academic journeys. Contributing to a solution that made this process easier was an incredibly rewarding experience.

• Conduct formal usability testing with students to gauge how effective the redesign was at addressing their needs
• Explore additional customization features e.g. color-coding according to student preferences, enabling multi-version functionality to account for various plans, redesigning for mobile, etc