HUDS Redesign

CASE STUDY • WINTER 2023

HUDS Redesign

REIMAGINING THE HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE DINING SERVICES ONLINE EXPERIENCE

TIMELINE

2 weeks

ROLE

UX Designer
Software Engineer

SKILLS

UX Research
Mockups
Full Stack Development

LANGUAGES/TOOLS

Figma
React
Javascript
CSS
Material UI
Firebase

OVERVIEW

I worked alongside a team of 1 product lead, 1 engineer lead, and 5 other product designers/SWEs to redesign the Harvard Undergraduate Dining Services (HUDS) undergraduate menu website and improve user experience. This 2 week long process involved one week of UI/UX-focused processes such as user interviews, affinity mapping, and creating Figma mock-ups to better understand our users and one week focused on building the web app using React, APIs, and Firebase.

THE PROBLEM

Harvard Undergraduate Dining Services (HUDS) has a website that provides students with a lot of information related to dining at Harvard such as menus for that week, interhouse restrictions, openings & closings, nutrition, etc. While the website offers important information, the interface can be overwhelming and hard to navigate.

HOW CAN WE REDESIGN THE HUDS WEBSITE
SUCH THAT IT BETTER FITS THE NEEDS OF
HARVARD’S UNDERGRADUATE POPULATION?

RESEARCH

Competitor Analysis

We began our research by analyzing other college undergraduate menu websites and drawing insights into what features contributed to a good website.

User Interviews

We conducted 3 user interviews with Harvard students, each from a distinct class and residential house, possessing varying dietary needs and lifestyles. We gathered insights from asking questions and viewing how interviewees interacted with the existing HUDS menu in order to better identify user behaviors, pain points, and goals.

WHAT CONSIDERATIONS DO YOU MAKE WHEN DECIDING WHICH DINING HALL TO EAT AT?

HOW OFTEN DO YOU GO ON THE HUDS WEBSITE?

CAN YOU DEMONSTRATE HOW YOU FIND THE INFORMATION YOU LOOK FOR?

Affinity Mapping

We categorized user interview observations into groups based on surfaced patterns.

Pain Points

1. Difficulty Accessing Information

• hard to find important pages

• “[it takes] at least 12 clicks before I get to the information [I need]”

‍• googled Hours & Restrictions page instead of finding page on the website

• hard to navigate between pages

• cannot go directly to Hours & Restrictions page once you click into a menu

• cannot easily return to a menu once you click into a food item

• unintuitive order of menu items

• “[I have to] scroll over 3 times to get to entrees”

2. Unawareness of Features

• many are unaware of allergy filter, nutrition reports, etc

THE SOLUTION

Comprised of three personalized, stream-lined, and user-friendly web pages,
our redesign provides Harvard students with an improved platform to access
their most important dining-related information.

LOCATIONS

SEE ALL AVAILABLE DINING HALL LOCATIONS, HOURS, AND INTERHOUSE RESTRICTIONS