NACCAP Research Web Application Redesign
Analytics made easier
Role: UX/UI Designer
Platforms: Responsive Web Application
Outcome: Redesigned, mobile-ready research platform with improved navigation and discoverability
The NACCAP Enrollment Research Project provides admissions professionals with decades of comparative admissions data, but the existing web experience made it difficult to find, interpret, and access insights—particularly on smaller screens. Dense tables, long lists of historical links, and navigation that exposed restricted content created friction for both new and returning users.
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This project focused on redesigning the research platform to make analytical data easier to navigate, interpret, and access across devices—without altering the underlying study content. The updated experience emphasized responsive layouts, clearer data organization, and role-aware navigation to support both public exploration and authenticated access.
APPROACH:
Data-informed UX design focused on improving discoverability, comprehension, and access to complex analytical content across devices, validated through stakeholder feedback and iterative design.
"Learn from yesterday, live for today."
ALBERT EINSTEIN
MY ROLE
I worked as a UX/UI Designer in collaboration with another designer to explore and refine interface solutions for presenting dense analytical content. I led UI design, responsive layout decisions, and the creation of a reusable style guide, and partnered with developers through design handoff and final validation to ensure design intent was preserved.
DISCOVERY
Improving access to analytical data
Key Insights
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Discoverability—not data quality—was the primary barrier to insight
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Navigation needed to reflect user context to reduce confusion
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Responsive presentation was critical for analytical content adoption
Discovery focused on understanding how admissions professionals located and compared enrollment data, and where the existing experience created friction—particularly for new or logged-out users. Benchmarking highlighted opportunities to simplify dense pages and adapt tabular data for smaller screens without sacrificing clarity.
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A key challenge emerged around historical access: original designs exposed links to 25+ years of results at once, overwhelming users and obscuring relevant comparisons. This insight drove the decision to reorganize results by year and introduce filtering patterns that allowed users to quickly locate meaningful data.
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Discovery also revealed confusion caused by navigation links leading to restricted, password-protected pages. This informed a shift toward role-aware navigation that only surfaced content appropriate to a user’s authentication state.
CREATION
Making complexity legible
Design efforts focused on restructuring layouts and navigation to make dense charts and tables more readable across devices. Responsive patterns were introduced to support side-by-side comparisons on desktop while maintaining clarity on mobile.
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The public-facing experience was redesigned to clearly communicate the value of the research and guide prospective users toward participation, while administrative tools and content management were moved into a dedicated CMS to reduce clutter and improve governance.
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Following design handoff, I collaborated with the development team to review implementation, resolve issues, and ensure that interaction patterns and visual hierarchy were accurately reflected in the final build.
Outcome & Impact​
The redesigned NACCAP Research platform improved accessibility and usability of long-running enrollment data, particularly on mobile devices. Clearer navigation and data organization supported both exploratory use and authenticated access, helping admissions professionals more easily locate and interpret insights.
