Summer Undergraduate Research Fest
857 clicks and 23K impressions in 1 month. A UX redesign that made research easier to explore.
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Led UX strategy
UX/UI Designer
Led UX strategy
Collaborators
Web Content Manager
Developer
Faculty Stakeholders
Duration
5 Weeks
Tools
Figma
WordPress
Google Search Console
Procreate
Overview
SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fest) is a flagship annual event hosted by UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) that showcases student-led research across disciplines. Over two years, I led the UX redesign event website to solve issues with navigation, structure, and discoverability.
My goal was to transform an overwhelming and text-heavy site into a streamlined, cluttered, content-heavy site into a clear and purposeful experience, while working within UMBC’s strict branding guidelines and a limited Content Management System (CMS) platform, which restricted design flexibility.
Problem Framing
The original SURF website was difficult to navigate, with scattered content, buried research links, and no structured flow - leaving users confused and overwhelmed.
Challenges:
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No clear pathway to explore student research or event details
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Long pages with low visual hierarchy
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No visual or structural grouping of poster links, abstracts, or resources
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Annual site reuse made it harder to iterate and scale
Navigation & Content Gaps:
The homepage shown here illustrates issues found across multiple pages of the site.
UX Impact:
These design limitations increased user effort, reduced research discoverability, and created scalability issues, as the same template was reused annually without iteration, violating core UX principles such as progressive disclosure and cognitive load reduction.
From Insights to Action
To address these challenges, my first step was to deconstruct the existing site structure, align content to user intent, and design a scalable framework that could serve future event cycles without repeating past issues - all within the constraints of the UMBC Design System.
1. Audited existing content and mapped user flows by role
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Reviewed all pages to identify outdated, redundant, or hard-to-find content
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Created role-based flow maps for presenters, mentors, and attendees
2. Restructured Navigation & Created Modular Layouts
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Grouped pages by audience and simplified menu labels for faster discovery.
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Designed modular page sections (hero, quick links, events) to enable quick yearly updates without a full redesign.
3. Applied UMBC brand guidelines for visual consistency
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Used official typography, colors, and patterns for consistency
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Ensured visual alignment with other university sites
Redesigned homepage with clear navigation and modular layout
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Clear navigation with streamlined menu labels
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Prominent event details placed above the fold
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Role-relevant quick links (visitor info, FAQs) for faster access
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Modular layout for easy annual updates
| This design brings the event’s purpose and key actions to the forefront, creating a more intuitive and scalable experience for students, mentors, and attendees.
Measurable Impact
The redesign had a measurable impact on site visibility and search engagement:
| These results demonstrate how better structure and flow directly improved engagement, even within a constrained visual system.
I Learned...
This project sharpened my ability to make meaningful UX improvements within brand and CMS limitations. Rather than relying on visual styling, I used layout clarity, content grouping, and structural hierarchy to reduce cognitive load and make exploration easier.
| SURF challenged me to deliver clarity, not just creativity. I learned that great UX isn’t about more styling - it’s about more structure, more intention, and more empathy.