OVERVIEW
Campus life, simplified.
College life outside the classroom can feel quite overwhelming, many things can fly under the radar.
We set out to make discovering what's happening on campus, and reaching the right audience, feel effortless and worthwhile for CMU students.
MY ROLE
As the sole designer on the team, I:
Led user research through surveys & interviews to identify needs and inform feature decisions
Produced and iterated on wireframes from low to high fidelity to define the site's UX and UI
Worked closely with developers across the full pipeline to launch and update the site
PROBLEM SPACE
How might we reduce the friction of sharing and discovering events, opportunities and clubs for CMU students and organizers so that the right information reaches the right people at the right time?
CMU students are navigating a fragmented landscape of social media, email lists, posters, and word of mouth. At the same time, organizers are stretched thin across too many platforms, struggling to reach the right audience.
Our research showed that the problem isn't a lack of opportunities or events, but rather the right information isn't reaching the right people.
SOLUTION
A personalized digital bulletin board for discovering, posting, and managing everything happening on campus
CMU Bulletin is a visual platform utilizing posters to centralizes campus discovery for students through a personalized, tag-based feed with real-time recommendations — while giving organizers an AI-assisted uploading experience that makes posting and managing opportunities effortless.
CMU Bulletin lets students, professors & staff browse & find posts with personalized recommendations.
A personalized onboarding experience
In order to help customize the experience of each and every CMU student, CMU Bulletin lets users pick their interests to curate their home feed.
Home for all campus going-ons
The home page acts as a central discovery hub, where users can easily discover campus-wide and popular staples, or search for specific events they might be interested in.
A place-based discovery engine
In order to help customize the experience of CMU students, CMU Bulletin lets users pick their interests to curate their home feed.
Exploring & Sharing posts
Users can browse posts and learn more about what catches their eyes - directly buying tickets, RSVPing, adding to calendar or share the post with their friends.
Managing saved posts in your profile
The home page acts as a central discovery hub, where users can easily discover campus-wide and popular staples, or search for specific events they might be interested in.
Grid view
Bulletin view
List view
CMU Bulletin lets organizers upload & manage posts in an effortless way to make sure the right people see the content
Onboarding
Ask users for permission & stay transparent
Scanning
Automatically scanning the content of poster
Progress
Letting users know where they are in the process
Auto-fill
Filling out fields where information can be scanned
Suggestions
Giving users pointers and recommendations
Reducing friction to the posting process
Interviews revealed a clear tension: users turn to social media for event promotion because it's low-effort, but campus tools often demand more work for less visibility.
AI assisted posting centers on removing that friction, where AI handles repetitive actions, letting users focus on the delivery of the post.
Managing saved posts in your profile
The home page acts as a central discovery hub, where users can easily discover campus-wide and popular staples, or search for specific events they might be interested in.
AI Permission
Manual Posting
Post managements + Preview
A low friction way to receive user feedback
In order to help customize the experience of CMU students, CMU Bulletin lets users pick their interests to curate their home feed.
A centralized hub to manage post engagement
In order to help customize the experience of CMU students, CMU Bulletin lets users pick their interests to curate their home feed.
RESEARCH
We surveyed 50+ students & professors and conducted in-depth interviews with 5, including 3 with outreach experience.
To gauge students and organizations’ needs and issues, we used remote surveys to gather quantitative data at scale to identify common general habits and pain points and followed up with semi-structured interviews to dive deep into the process. After working through these processes and synthesizing data, these are some of key findings:
The main issues were late discovery and lack of personalized, relevant postings
The current system's decentralized nature makes it hard for students to find opportunities that feel personally relevant to them.
62% of students surveyed
Cited hearing about events & opportunities too late as an issue
54% of respondents, including students, professors, and alumni
Struggle to find and follow events & opportunities relevant to them
Topic, timing, & social context are the top decision-making factors for students
Throughout the initial survey as well as follow up interviews and in-person activities, relevance and social context drive engagement decisions more than convenience or logistics.
Students rarely seek out events actively, they need standardized, glanceable information to decide if an event is worth their time while casually browsing.
Posters can draw users in, but inconsistent information creates friction. Students need key details and primary actions to be immediately accessible, with additional perks and information accessible as they engage further.
Competitive analysis
In order to get a more holistic view on what is currently being offered in the space, both from within our school and externally, we quickly conducted a round of research into the features and positioning of other modes of discovery.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
Key insights
1.
Students miss events because postings reach them too late or feel irrelevant, highlighting the need for a personalized, timely feed.
2.
A standardized, filterable browsing experience with clear categories, dates, and accessible actions is essential to reducing friction.
3.
Keeping track of posts are a core struggle: save & add-to-calendar functions are essential.
4.
For organizers, reach alone isn't enough: meaningful engagement from the right audience matters more than just volume.
LO-FI
Information Architechture
TESTING
Deciding between different ways of presenting information through A/B testing with 5 participants
Option 1: Toggling view modes
Option 2: Toggling all vs saved/posted posts
After this round of testing, the conclusion was that users do not need this level of control right on the board, and this would only add to the list of tasks they need to be doing and clutter up the space.
Option 1: Full poster with information upon hover
Option 2: Poster + Standard information
Option 2 was preferred because users reported it being more easy to scan and get an overall impression of what each post's content would be, while option 1 was considered cleaner but less informative.
DESIGN SYSTEM
An extended system built upon ScottyLabs existing design system
A brand that blends sleek modernity with tactility
IMPACT
Designing a beta product presented to 100+ students, staff, and faculty — officially launching Fall 2026
CMU Bulletin has been showcased at multiple Carnegie Mellon events, including TEDx, the Innovation Expo & ScottySparks, as well as featured in the User Experience Association's weekly newsletter. The product received feedback from students, visitors, professors, the Dean of the School of Computer Science, and more.
LEARNING
Experience as a selling-point of the product
Getting people to care about the product
To bring potential users on board, you have to show that you genuinely care about what you're building and the feedback you receive.
The design process as the product process
Design doesn't begin at the final stage — it's the integration of research and collaboration with developers from the very start.
Understanding code in the context of the product
Knowing the technical constraints and possibilities has been essential, and understanding front-end code means implementing designs more effectively.
Not being afraid to learn new things
Being the sole designer on a team for the first time meant learning to articulate my value and stay open to learning from everyone around me.