Graduate Program in Environmental Engineering

The Graduate Program in Environmental Engineering at UNAM is a professional study program aimed at training researchers through in-depth knowledge in areas related to environmental engineering.

Prior to the website I developed, the Graduate Program had a site created approximately 20 years ago, which no longer met the demands that the evolution of the internet requires for a functional website.

The original site consisted solely of a list of links containing outdated information. It lacked a defined structure and gave equal hierarchy to all site content.

To address this, I first focused on understanding what the Graduate Program authorities wanted to communicate with the new site. Among their expectations were:

• Creating a modern visual impact.

• Establishing an updated online presence.

• Highlighting the five main fields of study offered by the Graduate Program.

The program’s representatives expressed the need for a new site in order to shed an outdated image and present themselves in a modern way to the university community. They also requested that navigation remain as close as possible to the previous (2006) site, as they believed its structure was adequate for navigating the content.

The original site, created in 2006, served primarily as a bulletin for announcements and updates about educational opportunities to join the Graduate Program. However, after 20 years of institutional growth, I decided to analyze the site's weaknesses in order to propose improvements that would give the Graduate Program an image that reflects its educational significance.

Among my observations, I found several areas that could be improved in the new site, such as having 15 items in the navigation menu, broken links, empty pages, pages with outdated information, lack of information hierarchy, content without headings that summarize the written information, hard-to-access links that get lost within the text, and more.

Additionally, after speaking with researchers from the Graduate Program as well as prospective applicants, I discovered further issues such as confusing information, lack of images to support the content, unclear navigation, missing details about the academic offerings, absence of information regarding the internal organization of the Program, and a lack of contact channels.

Based on the previous analysis, the main users of the new website and their intended uses were defined as follows:

• Members of the Graduate Program, such as professors, researchers, and administrators:

  
  

  • Seek to provide information about classes and topics to be taught.

  • Want to share announcements about changes in the academic offerings.

  • Need a space on the site where they can be contacted.

  • Aim to provide information about the educational offerings (main areas of study, master's programs, doctoral programs, etc.).

• Students enrolled in the Graduate Program:

  
  

  • Look for information about changes in their class schedules.

  • Seek updates on re-enrollment dates.

  • Need information about required documents and enrollment forms.

  • Want to learn about extracurricular courses.

  • Seek contact information.

• Prospective applicants to the Graduate Program:

  
  

  • Look for information on admission calls.

  • Seek dates for the admission process.

  • Want to understand what the Graduate Program in Environmental Engineering is.

  • Search for information on the program's educational offerings.

  • Need contact information.

After analyzing the users and their needs in collaboration with the Graduate Program authorities, several solutions were proposed to address both the needs of the identified users and the initial expectations of the Program's representatives regarding a modernized website:

• Based on Miller's Law, I proposed reducing the navigation menu from 15 to 8 items by creating new groupings and using dropdown menus to lower the users' cognitive load.




• Give the Graduate Program a stronger presence within the navigation by including its logo.




• Welcome users with a headline and slogan in the hero section to provide context for the rest of the site.




• Create dedicated pages for the most academically important topics the program offers, such as institutional information, leadership members, academic offerings, and information for the different groups in the community (prospective students, current students, alumni, and researchers). This aims to differentiate and organize information based on the type of user visiting the site.




• Expand and enrich the information about the Disciplinary Fields of study offered by the program, so that prospective students can better understand the specialized areas available.




• Add secondary navigation for non-academic but necessary topics related to communication between the Program and its students, such as access to regulations, social media communities, and contact options.




• Differentiate between Master's and Doctoral professors, making it easier for prospective students to find information based on the degree they are interested in pursuing.




• Expand information about the different campuses where the Program is offered, so that prospective students can learn more about the locations where classes are held both within and outside Mexico City.