BeavsHub,course planning made clear.
Redesigning a student-built course planning tool for OSU's digital standards - so students can confidently plan their academic paths.
After
BeforePaul Nguyen, a current OSU CS student and BeavsHub's original creator, asked me to help transform the platform into a more intuitive, reliable tool students could confidently use to plan their academic paths.
BeavsHub lacked structure, visual consistency, and alignment with OSU's digital standards - making it hard for students to trust or navigate.
I redesigned the interface for clarity and navigation, applied OSU's visual brand consistently, added degree-progress and prerequisite-planning tools, and validated the design through usability testing with OSU CS students.
Grounded in three inputs
I started by understanding the creator's priorities, how students actually plan, and what competitors were missing.
Paul set the initial priorities: better structure, clearer reviews, and planning tools.
Five OSU CS students revealed they care more about course difficulty and workload than professor ratings.
Tools like Rate My Professors and Class Central showed the opportunity was combining peer insights with degree planning.
Designing for real students
Personas and card sorting helped me move beyond assumptions and build around actual behavior.
I built two personas - Ethan and Rachel - reflecting different planning styles: strategy-driven versus peer-influenced. This pushed the design toward supporting both paths rather than one "ideal" user.
Plans semesters in advance. Values degree progress and prerequisite clarity.
Relies on peer feedback. Wants quick workload and difficulty comparisons.
I ran 9 card-sorting sessions with 18 cards across 4 categories to test how students naturally grouped planning features.
The clear signal: students value accuracy, simplicity, and fast access over polish - which directly shaped the navigation and content hierarchy.
Thinking in actions, not menus
The sitemap and wireframes were organized around what students actually want to do.
Using those insights, I built a sitemap around how students actually think - in actions like plan, compare, and register, not categories or menus.
From there, low-fidelity wireframes mapped out core flows like course summaries and prerequisite planning, prioritizing scannability over density.
Build a degree path with clear prerequisites and progress.
Evaluate courses by difficulty, workload, and peer feedback.
Move from planning to enrollment with confidence.
Low-friction flows, high-fidelity details
I optimized the review flow for speed and refined the interface to guide decisions without overwhelming.
I mapped a task flow for writing a course review, optimized to feel quick and low-friction - since research showed students contribute more when the process feels simple, not formal.
This flow shaped the high-fidelity wireframes, where details like review prompts and visual prerequisite indicators were refined to guide decisions without overwhelming the page.
Validated with students
Usability testing turned one standout insight into a core feature.
Students wanted a visual way to track completed courses.
I usability-tested the high-fidelity prototype with 5 OSU CS students on core tasks - exploring course info, checking prerequisites, and submitting reviews.
In response to the standout finding, I designed a progress-tracking feature with Paul to give students a clearer sense of where they stood in their academic path.
The redesign strengthened BeavsHub as a trusted academic planning resource for OSU students.
This project was a deep dive into how students make academic decisions.
Grounding every choice in real feedback and iterating closely with Paul reinforced how much clarity and trust matter in tools people rely on for something as important as their degree.
Check out BeavsHub live→Since this case study, the developer has continued to make updates to the live site - so what you see today may differ from these designs.