When students search for a class at NWTC, they shouldn't have to already know what they're looking for. But that was exactly the problem. Our course pages were static, unsearchable, and offered no path to registration. On-site search data told the story clearly: approximately 34% of our top 200 unanswered search queries were class-related, meaning thousands of visitors were hitting dead ends while actively trying to enroll.
This project set out to fix that, and has since grown into a fully integrated, Workday-connected course and class registration experience that serves students across all three of NWTC's primary course types.
Course pages existed to describe offerings but did nothing to move students toward action. There was no browsable class search, no registration call to action, and no solution for courses offered infrequently. A course offered once a year would essentially disappear from search visibility during its off-season. Welcome Center staff were fielding avoidable inquiries from students who simply couldn't find or act on the information they needed.
I contributed to this project from the beginning as the UX strategy, content strategy, and user research lead. I shaped the information architecture, defined content requirements, conducted usability research, and advocated for the student perspective throughout development and iteration.
After hearing about the problem from Welcome Center staff, I analyzed on-site search metrics to quantify the gap. The finding that roughly one in three unanswered queries was class-related gave the team a concrete, data-backed case for prioritizing the work.From there I developed a usability study framework to test the prototype with real students, focusing on how they find and register for classes and where they drop off. KPIs included time on task, drop-off rates, conversion rates, and a System Usability Scale score.
The team implemented a two-layer solution: a static course page that describes the course and remains indexable year-round, capturing search traffic even when no sections are currently available, and a dynamic class listing layer that pulls live section data directly from Workday as the source of truth. Students can browse available sections, view class notes and details, and follow a registration path that integrates directly with the Student Portal and Workday.
This architecture solved two distinct problems simultaneously: discoverability for students who don't know exactly what they're looking for, and continuity of search visibility for courses with infrequent offerings.
The next phase of this project adds contextual intelligence to the course page experience across three course types:
Credit courses will display dynamic messaging based on program association, encouraging students to apply to a specific program before registering for courses that require admission, while providing a simpler path for general education courses open to all students.
Continuing education courses will gain expanded marketing copy capabilities, keyword-rich content fields to improve search visibility, enhanced branding options, and manual cross-linking to related information and licensing pages.
All course types will display dynamic cost messaging at the course level, giving students clearer information earlier in their decision-making process.
Mockups for these enhancements are available and actively guiding development conversations.
