Macquarie University

Students found both the onboarding and enrolment experiences confusing and inconsistent. The existing information was fragmented across webpages and emails, and the enrolment system was visually outdated and cognitively demanding, especially for international or first-year students.

To better understand student needs, we conducted user interviews and co-design workshops with staff. This process revealed key pain points, including unclear terminology, a lack of step-by-step guidance, and inconsistencies between EDM content and web interfaces. These issues often left students feeling confused and frustrated during an already challenging stage of university life.

Getting Started Toolkit

We created a digital checklist aligned with the university's email campaigns to ensure consistency and reduce mental load. The toolkit offered a clean, visual guide for new students to complete tasks in a logical order, integrated with links and explanations.

Enrolment Webpage

We redesigned the enrolment page to simplify language, introduce a step-by-step visual journey, and reduce the intimidation factor. Icons and diagrams were used to support user understanding of terminology like “unit selection” and “credit points.”

Usability Testing

We conducted six usability testing sessions with current Macquarie students to evaluate our prototypes and gather feedback. These sessions helped us identify confusing elements in the webpage’s information architecture and layout, uncover cognitive barriers in how users processed the content hierarchy, and collect direct recommendations for improvement.

Accessibility

Accessibility and inclusion shaped several key design decisions. Testing revealed that international students and students with lower digital confidence were disproportionately affected by ambiguous terminology and dense information layouts. In response, we simplified language to plain English, added visual cues and iconography to support comprehension across literacy levels, and ensured the redesigned pages met WCAG 2.1 AA contrast and readability standards. The goal was a toolkit that worked for the broadest range of students — not just those already comfortable navigating university systems.

The redesigned checklist toolkit and enrolment page were adopted across multiple departments and progressed to production — reaching a student population of approximately 30,000. Usability improvements targeted two measurable pain points: enrolment drop-off during the onboarding phase, and inbound query volume to the student contact centre. Usability testing with current students validated the clearer information architecture before launch, and feedback confirmed reduced cognitive load, particularly among first-year and international students navigating the process for the first time.