Xenior+

Context

Objectives

• Let instructors evaluate student projects inside the platform, faster and in a more structured way.
• Make project search efficient, specific, and able to return what users actually need.
• Redesign the UX/UI so it's appropriate, usable, and comfortable for every user group.

Research

User Research & Evaluation

Before moving into final UI design and UAT, I conducted two rounds of evaluation with instructors to understand usability issues and validate design decisions.

Round 1 — Instructor Feedback

After the Phase 1 presentation, I collected feedback from 5 instructors on the home page, assessment flow, and rubric. Recurring findings included:

• Show project names instead of student IDs so groups are easier to recognize
• Make pending-task cards clickable to filter the table below
• Use consistent status wording across screens
• Support decimal scores and display a score range for each rubric level

Round 2 — In-depth Interviews & Satisfaction Ratings

I conducted in-depth interviews with instructors and asked them to rate 7 areas on a 1–5 scale. I grouped the identified pain points by priority.

The highest-priority findings were:

• Visual consistency: The color palette was inconsistent, and colors did not consistently communicate status meaning.
• Navigation: Instructors had to press Back after reviewing each group, causing them to lose their scroll position.
• Assessment workflow: Instructors had to switch between screens to read reports and assign scores.

These findings were used to refine the interface and assessment workflow before the final UAT.

Feature

Key Feature: Xenior Form

Xenior Form digitizes the evaluation process end-to-end:

• Dynamic, rubric-based criteria that instructors can configure per assessment
• Group and member identification built into the form, so evaluators always know who they're scoring
• Report viewing side-by-side with the evaluation form — no more switching screens — with version history to compare current submissions against earlier drafts
• Inline comments per criterion, draft-saving, submission locking after deadlines, form duplication across subjects/years, and CSV import

Testing

Usability Testing & Iteration

What worked

• Instructors responded well to having evaluation centralized in one place, eliminating the download-file / listen-to-presentation / switch-to-Google-Sheets routine
• The scoring slider (supporting drag, direct numeric input, and decimals) was well received
• Search filtering and autocomplete were rated clearly better than the legacy search across all three user groups
• Students specifically valued the "Upcoming Deadlines" view for showing urgency at a glance

Issues identified and resolved within project scope

• Terminology errors ("Criterion" vs "Criteria" used incorrectly)

  Fixed

• Feedback input field wasn't visually prominent enough, risking skipped steps

  Repositioned

• Evaluation forms couldn't open in a new tab, making score comparison across groups hard

  Added new-tab support

• Form header took up too much space

  Condensed, with detail moved to a popup

• No way to resize the report/evaluation panes

  Added resizable layout

• Landing page lacked department contact info

  Added

• Projects without a cover image left blank space

  Added category color-coding

• Instructor dashboard didn't clearly show outstanding vs. total workload

  Added progress ratio + color coding

Deferred to future development

Semantic search (to handle queries that don't exactly match project titles), a carousel-style project showcase on the landing page, merging Announcements with the Senior Project Manual section, and deadline notifications.