A new publications’ index to showcase scientific excellence of the institution

The Problem

✍️ 100% manual data entry

Researchers had to enter their publications manually on the university website, a tedious process prone to errors and omissions.

📉 Incomplete and outdated profiles

Without automation, researcher pages didn’t accurately reflect their work. The university’s research visibility suffered as a result.

🔗 No connection to academic standards

ORCID is the global reference identifier for researchers. The university website had no integration with it whatsoever.

🔍 No aggregated view

No page existed to browse the full scientific output of UniDistance Suisse in one place.

Research & discovery

A 6-month MVP to learn before building. Rather than starting from assumptions, a fully manual first version was deployed and left running for 6 months. This allowed us to observe real behaviours, collect organic feedback, and understand what researchers actually needed.

💡 Researchers wanted to display precise metadata: peer-reviewed, preregistered, open data, open materials.

💡 Entering the same data twice (ORCID + university website) was seen as an unacceptable waste of time.

💡 The manual editing interface revealed significant friction around bibliographic data management.

💡 User tests conducted with researchers on the sync interface before UI design work to catch frictions and observe user’s behavior.

Anatomy of the publication’s edit component

My roles

UX/UI Designer

Sync flow design • Publication editing interface • User testing • Publication page and components design

Product Designer

Data base design • Business logic & sync rules • Enriched fields definition (open data, etc.)

Product Manager

Requirements gathering & prioritisation • Roadmap set up • Functional specs generation • Backlog management

Main learning

Automation is only as good as the data it relies on. A significant part of the project was defining the optimal user flow across platforms and minimizing maintenance overhead. Since researchers need to keep their ORCID profile up to date, the technical solution had to reduce friction enough to drive adoption.

Context

The brand image was evolving and the website no longer matched the new graphic design. The UI needed to be aligned with the graphic charter while improving accessibility. The whole project had to be done in two weeks, design and development included. I decided then to go with a constraint of SCSS-only changes to limit risk. UniDistance Suisse: Two weeks UI Redesign

Methodology

• Atomic Design approach to meet extreme deadlines.

• Scope limited to SCSS to maximize value and reduce risk.

• No layout or interaction modifications.

Process

Conducted a full audit of SCSS class architecture, cross-referencing UI components to surface patterns and inconsistencies. Refactored the codebase accordingly, then formalized the design language into a Figma component library aligned with existing SCSS nomenclature to reduce friction in developer hand-off. Deliverable spanned the full atomic design spectrum, from foundational atoms through assembled molecules. UniDistance Suisse: Work flow

Results

The site places greater emphasis on content, while also highlighting the need to improve it. Retention has increased, as has the number of pages viewed, indicating that users find it easier to read and search for information. UniDistance Suisse: New UI

Main learning

Working on technical debt, refactoring and improving code scalability is never a waste of time. Advocating invisible work is just as important as showcasing visible successes.

Context

Parents who share responsibility for children — whether in a couple or separated — face doubled mental load and relationship tensions caused by disorganized task sharing.

Solution

An interface to centralize and better distribute tasks, with humor and fun. “The Favorite” offers a humorous take on the burden of parenthood — parents work as a real team while competing against each other.

Methodology

Design Thinking for product ideation. Scrum for development. Atomic Design to align front-end architecture and UI design.

Process

Epic/User Stories drove back-end developments. Atomic Design allowed alignment of front-end architecture and UI design. Prioritization based on user tests conducted on a functional prototype. The Favorite app: Figma Prototype

Main learning

Taking a little time to reduce uncertainty in specs means saving a lot of time in development.

Context

Direct booking on the establishment’s website competed with online booking platforms charging commission on each stay. The goal was to optimize the UX on swisspeakresorts.com for prospecting and booking, with minimal development effort.

Methodology

Jesse James Garrett’s 5-plane structure: Strategy → Scope → Structure → Skeleton → Surface.

Process

Strategy — Benchmarked 3 competitors (Club Med, Center Parcs, Sonnwies Resort). Conducted UX research including 3-second tests, one-to-one interviews, card sorting, and booking funnel user testing. Swisspeak Resorts: User Journey

Scope — Prioritized problems by user impact, business priority, and technical effort.

Structure — Defined SEO strategy and information architecture. Card sorting workshop informed the site map (max 5 menu items, max 4 depth levels). Swisspeak Resorts: Site Map

Skeleton — Designed wireframes per page type. Resolved key pain points: preselected apartments by bedroom count, linked directly to booking platform at step 3, integrated destination map. Swisspeak Resorts: Prototype

Surface — 3-second test revealed the navy blue gave an institutional/technological feeling. Recommended switching to Swisspeak’s green for nav and footer.

Main learning

Design must be contextualized. The right solution brings the most value to users and increases business performance, for the least tech effort.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Anatomy of the new contact page