My Role
Unigo.com is a well recognized brand in the education space and has been since 2007. The website was & is quite dated in the look and feel, so considering the main audience of high school students I wanted to make the app feel more current & easier to use than the website. I had recently completed a new redesign of the main dashboard for web & mobile (improving several areas of friction) and used that as a launch pad to create an MVP of the app.
The main objective:
Create a mobile app that allows students to manage their scholarships and to notify them via push notifications of where they are in the process (status).
Goals of the Mobile App
Focus mainly on scholarships
Allow students to be in the know through each step of the scholarship process
Be an MVP of the mobile website
Unigo's history (for context)
Website dashboard, used as the basis for how the mobile app would look.
Mobile dashboard - Easy at-a-glance view to see an overall look of students progress in their scholarship journey.
Empty States - With a main focus on scholarships everything was geared towards finding a scholarship. I used AI tools to help with the creation of these empty state graphics.
Recommended folder
Bottom sheet showing where a student is in the application process.
Favorite: Toaster & button tap micro interactions.
App splash from iOS store
Signup into main app.
Early dashboard explorations
Design problems I wanted to address
Make complex processes like scholarships easier and more approachable
Create consistency across product, marketing, and print to strengthen trust and usability
Build an academic-focused identity that stood apart from entertainment-driven platforms
Challenges
No design system
Brand guidelines were not adhered to on the main website
Shifting priorities, constantly being pulled aside for other projects
Design expectations vs developer bandwidth/capabilities
Walnut Creek, CA