Two eras in one flow
37 of 58 captured screens are old server pages. A course opens in the new interface, registration happens in the old one.
Case Study
TUGRAZonline
A redesign concept for the student portal of TU Graz
TUGRAZonline is the portal where students of Graz University of Technology find courses, register for them and for exams, and follow their studies. I studied how it works today and built a clickable prototype of how it could work: organised around the student’s tasks, not around applications.
Independent concept, not commissioned by TU Graz. Fictional student data; the course catalogue comes from public data.
The Problem
Built around applications, not around tasks
The portal is not outdated because of how it looks. It is hard to use because it is organised around applications, and two interfaces from different eras are glued together inside one scenario.
Registration as a table
About 17 columns per group, unreadable on a phone: at 388 px the page is 991 px wide.
No “what now” screen
The home page is a flat list of 68 applications; deadlines are hidden inside sections.
Search misses courses
Global search covers staff, organisations and rooms, but not courses.
Approach
Six to eight student scenarios, done deep
I mapped the public part and the student scenarios end to end: find a course, register, plan the week, register for an exam, check grades and progress. Instead of redesigning the whole portal shallowly, I took the key scenarios deep.
The new navigation follows the student’s tasks: Today, Studies, Courses, Exams, Calendar, Service. The catalogue shows TU Graz courses by default; the 4,535 courses of other universities are one switch away instead of 68% of every list.
Today
A home page that answers “what do I do now?”
Today collects everything with a deadline: open registrations, exams, outstanding fees, the next lectures and what changed since yesterday, with the days left in front.
One Registration Pattern
Courses and exams register the same way
Registration for a course and for an exam follow one pattern in three steps: choose, review, confirm. The student sees free places, the deadline and whether the group fits their week before they register.
Everyday Tools
Calendar, recordings, mail and profile in one place
The calendar shows classes, exams and deadlines together and lets students add their own reminders. Lecture recordings, university mail, study progress and the profile live in the same shell, so nothing opens in a different system.
Design System
A design system made for the portal
The prototype is built on its own design system with generated tokens and guards against drift. It works in German and English, in light and dark mode, and on phones.
- German and English
- Light and dark mode
- Mobile layout
- Global search
- Tokens and components
- Accessible focus and contrast
Scope & Data
What this concept is, and what it is not
This is an independent concept study. It was not commissioned by TU Graz and is not an official TU Graz service. The student is fictional, and lecturer names are placeholders. The course catalogue comes from public data.
The prototype has no backend: it shows how the portal could feel, so that decisions can be made on something that works, not on slides.