Digital Design Assistant
My Role
Digital Design Assistant
Managed By
Reem Alsanea, UX Designer and Program Manager
My Team
Kanksha Dixit, Vinayak Kiranji (Team Lead), Panth Shah, Jane Effanga, Mayur Chaudhari, Sagar Mehta, Blake Cunningham, Surbhi Soni, Satadru Debnath
Timeline
September 2023 - December 2024
Tool Utilized
Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Miro, Microsoft Office,
My Contributions
User Research, UX initiatives, Stakeholder presentations, Accessibility Audits, Content strategy, Digital Design
Project Context : Product, Team, and Responsibilities
During my graduate program at Northeastern, I joined the Information Technology Services team as a Digital Design Assistant, working across student, employee, and family platforms that served more than 10,000 users. The team’s mission was to continuously improve usability, engagement, and accessibility for these critical digital systems.
As a Digital Design Assistant on Northeastern’s Experience Design team, I worked on improving the core digital platforms like student hub, family hub, and employee hub, which serve over 10,000 students, employees, and families across 13 campuses.
These hubs are very essential for Northeastern’s community, and I was excited to make them more intuitive, engaging, and accessible.
How might we make Northeastern’s digital hubs more accessible, intuitive, and supportive so that students, employees, and families can confidently find what they need and feel more connected to their campus community?
The spark : My first UX Job
This project was meaningful to me because it was my first chance to apply human-centered design principles to a large-scale, real-world environment. I saw how design could simplify people’s daily lives and reduce confusion, stress, and friction, and that felt powerful.
In this role, I collaborated with team leads, other fellow assistants, the UX manager, product stakeholders, developers, and other digital teams across information technology services at Northeastern University. I wore many hats across research, strategy, and design. I :
Conducted UX and accessibility audits to ensure platforms met WCAG standards
Analyzed usage data and engagement metrics with Google Analytics
Facilitated focus groups with students, staff, and families to hear their stories
Proposed feature redesigns and structural improvements in Figma
Supported engineers with clear prototypes and design specs
Digital platforms at Northeastern had grown organically over time, leading to inconsistent user experiences, unclear flows, and accessibility gaps. Students often struggled to find important resources, and engagement on some dashboard features was low.
Whenever I was assigned a design or research task, I made it a point to first deeply understand the problem space:
Reviewed past designs and gathered data on current performance
Studied business objectives and goals for the specific feature or initiative
Asked clarifying questions to the stakeholders
Conducted a landscape review of similar products and gathered inspiration
This helped me define opportunities for improvement grounded in both user needs and organizational strategy.
Research & Analysis: Ran quick user research exercises, reviewed analytics, and summarized pain points
Exploration: Sketched low-fidelity flows, tested variations, and worked through IA models
Design Options: Developed multiple solutions with clear trade-offs, always keeping accessibility and consistency in mind
Collaboration: Presented options to the team, explained my rationale, and refined the work based on feedback
Stakeholder Alignment: Shared refined concepts during biweekly syncs to get buy-in and make final adjustments before handoff
Conducted WCAG accessibility audits for 7+ major university platforms, directly informing developer of updates
Designed new seasonal content and polls for the Student Hub, increasing engagement among 10,000+ students
Synthesized focus group research to validate improvements for the “Me” dashboard, helping shape the redesign roadmap
Strengthened design culture on the team by consistently advocating for user-first, data-informed solutions
This experience helped me build confidence in working systematically, presenting design decisions clearly, and asking smart questions early in the process. I became more comfortable balancing data, user empathy, and stakeholder input while advocating for best practices in accessibility and inclusive design.
Looking back,
This role shaped my mindset as a product designer, reminding me that even small, thoughtful improvements in large systems can make a big impact on people’s lives.
I learned to confidently advocate for users while collaborating closely with stakeholders and balancing business needs.
This role taught me to stay systematic, ask the right questions, and stay grounded in both data and empathy.
What I’m most proud of:
Facilitating stakeholder reviews and being trusted to propose real feature updates
Designing with empathy for very large, diverse audiences
Taking ownership of the Accessibility QA audits
Learning to translate analytics + focus group data into meaningful, practical design
