Harvard Summer School Course Catalog
Redesign to improve the course search experience for high school students enrolled in summer programs
Audience
High-achieving high school students seeking an Ivy League education
Goals
Improve the student experience for finding Harvard Summer School courses, so that it is fast and intuitive. Help high school students discover courses that fit their interests.
Utilize course catalog that was recently redesigned for Harvard Extension School, making modifications to the tool to meet the needs of Harvard Summer School audiences.
Role
Project lead, Research, Usability Testing, Information Architecture
Key Research Insights
Speak like a High Schooler
Speaking with both students and academic staff, we uncovered the need to modify the language we use when presenting our courses. For example, high school students use the term “Social Studies” when looking for courses in history, government, and economics. As a result, we will implement a feature that groups the college subject codes under categories that high school students are more familiar with.
driving enrollments
Staff reported seeing a trend that courses that did not enroll more than 5 students immediately when registration opened struggled to fill seats throughout the registration period. Seeing “2 enrolled” led to the perception that a course was “bad.” To solve this challenge, we reframed enrollment numbers as “13 seats available” to display remaining spaces open. In user tests, this change appeared to avoid these negative perceptions.