Consolidating undergraduate resources into one roadmap
Role
Content Designer
Timeline
June to August 2025
Team
3 Designers
Tools & Skills
Figma, Adobe InDesign
Backgrounds
Experience maps for new and undeclared Berkeley students
Major maps are Berkeley's main resource for guiding students through the academic and career opportunities available for their major.
Berkeley had detailed major maps for nearly every declared major, but no resource for the students who needed guidance most: those who hadn't declared yet.
I helped Berkeley's Undergraduate Office fill that gap by designing the map's information architecture to effectively guide undeclared students through major selection.
Problem
How do we organize information to appeal to every undeclared student?
The project initially seemed simple since major maps follow a design system of a 4 year roadmap. However, I realized that format would not work because students need to declare a major by their second year at the latest.
I needed to create a major map that is relevant to all undeclared students, regardless of their intended major and specific year. Content needed to be organized to each students' major dilemma.
Research
Major declaration paths vary immensely between students
I conducted 8 user interviews with first and second-year students to understand the different ways one finds their major and the predicaments they encountered along the way.
Students' stories varied drastically from one another, with some knowing exactly what they wanted to others needing to pivot in their second year.
I grouped their stories and obstacles the students faced into 4 personas that would guide how we structured the map around different student situations.
Insights
Content structure needed to reflect on career and passion
I utilized commonalities from the personas to ideate user flows that would serve as the structure for the final map. I prioritized solutions rooted in careers and passion, as those were the themes that resonated most consistently across interviews.
I eventually simplified the flow to 3 situations to not overcomplicate navigation for students and give more emphasis to the information itself.
Final Designs
A roadmap for undeclared students of all backgrounds
The final undeclared map separates information and resources into 3 situations that a student may undergo. After identifying a situation, students can navigate the various ways they can declare a major.
I experimented with completely different formats, but in the end, we decided that maintaining the major map design format would ease students into using the other major maps.
Takeaways
Final Thoughts
Consolidating so many different perspectives into a single roadmap was challenging but led me to dissect how student situations differed and overlapped from one another.
This being my first content design project helped me learn just how different content design is from product design. I adjusted my mindset to not overcomplicating user journeys to fill every edge case. Less is more when content is meant to guide you.