Team
Myself
Role
Product Design
Georgia Tech Office of Information Technology
overview
It is the Office of Information Technology at Georgia Tech, providing Information Technology leadership and support across the university. I currently help with UI/UX designing, helping to redo websites that need updates in functionality or aesthetic revamps with design systems.
I personally contributed high-impact feature requests on existing products allowing for outsized operational impact (creating more efficiency through less manual entry, fewer missed shifts, and safer admin actions).
Personal Contribution: CTL
overview
The CTL website was visually outdated and no longer aligned with Georgia Tech’s more modern aesthetic. Content was densely packed with limited separation, which made it hard for users’ mental models of ‘sections’ to match what they saw on the page. As a result, both students looking for information about CTL and faculty trying to stay up to date on events found it difficult to quickly navigate and locate specific content. CTL wanted a visual refresh that also made the site more user-friendly and easier to scan.
constraints
The redesign needed to use a new OIT design system created by other team members, including predefined blocks, sections, and graphic treatments.
All existing CTL content had to be preserved, while still fitting into the updated visual and structural framework.
goals
Make the CTL pages easier to scan by improving categorization and reducing visual clutter, so users could find relevant information with less mental effort.
Highlight key content such as the most recent posts and upcoming events to support CTL’s communication priorities.
guiding the eye with hierarchy
For each CTL layout, I started by ranking the importance of the content on the page, then used visual hierarchy to guide the user’s eye through that order. The most important information is given the largest, most prominent treatment, with secondary content placed below or in smaller blocks to create a clear reading path.
The new design system’s generous spacing and modular blocks allowed me to avoid dense walls of text. By limiting how much content appeared within each block and keeping enough whitespace between sections, users could process one category at a time instead of facing a single, overloaded page.
Subproblem: CTL Blog
overview
The CTL blog needed to highlight recent posts more clearly, reduce how much content appeared on each page, and still support category-based browsing with fully visible images within the reading page.
constraints
Show fewer posts per page so recent posts stand out
goals
Keep category-based search/filtering
Ensure blog images are fully visible (not cropped awkwardly)
Use the OIT design system components as a base
emphasizing the most recent content
I customized the blog layout so the three most recent posts stand out visually. These posts use a larger card with a full-bleed image at the top, making them immediately recognizable as the freshest content.
Posts that follow use a more compact horizontal layout adapted from the original component. This format supports single-post scanning as users move down the list, making it easier to skim titles and decide what to read next.
Each page is limited to seven posts so the most relevant and timely information remains at the top, reducing the need to scroll through older content to find what matters now.
I placed the category filters at the top of the blog, using a dropdown so all sections remain accessible without consuming too much vertical space. The existing search field is kept alongside the filters, giving users two clear ways to find posts: by topic or by keyword.
ensuring images stay fully visible
To keep blog images fully visible and avoid awkward cropping, I separated the image from the text container in the card design. The header image sits in its own dedicated area above the text, so titles and metadata never overlap or obscure the imagery.
Outcomes
The redesigned CTL layouts present content in a clearer hierarchy, making recent posts, key announcements, and major sections easier to scan at a glance.
The blog redesign emphasizes the newest posts while still supporting category filters and search, helping both students and faculty quickly find relevant information.
By building on the OIT design system, the CTL pages now feel visually aligned with other Georgia Tech properties, which improves consistency and reduces maintenance overhead for future updates.
Takeaways
In the context of delivering information in the most effective way possible, the greatest importance should be placed on how effectively the content can be perceived both in order and with mental separation. Without this, it is difficult for the viewer to grasp the most important information.
The design system is an integral part to a process if it wanted to create scalability within the website, especially if it the designer were to do a great amount of individual sites.
know the engineering constraints
Initially, some of my designs were too complex for efficient implementation on Drupal and Wordpress, leading the work to have to be redone for a simpler implementation. Having this clear communication between the engineers and I allowed for the creation of websites that actually got implemented and put into production.
