Alyssa Nelson
Case Study -
Student Information System
Transforming Chaos into Clarity for a Growing Educational Organization
Project Type: Internal Web Application (Admin + Parent-Facing SIS)
Role: Lead Product Designer
Timeline: Jun 2024 – Present (Launch Planned for Oct 2025)
Challenge: Replace failed $40,000/year system serving 800+ students and 500+ parents
THE CHALLENGE
A fast-growing educational organization serving 800+ students and 500+ parents was juggling spreadsheets, manual invoicing, and scattered communication tools to manage enrollment, payments, and student records. Their previous system cost $40,000/year, failed to meet core needs, and was ultimately abandoned.
By the time I joined, staff were billing manually, managing enrollments in Google Sheets, and losing critical hours each week to repetitive tasks. Their previous system failed due to usability issues, missing core features, cost bloat, and poor vendor communication.
The goal: design a custom solution that could centralize operations, streamline workflows, and scale with their growth — all for $10,000/year instead of $40,000.
My Role
As the sole designer and product co-lead, I owned the product's design direction end-to-end — from problem discovery through to high-fidelity UI delivery and developer handoff. My responsibilities included:
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UX research and stakeholder interviews
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Journey mapping and user personas
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Design system architecture and component library
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UI/UX design in Figma, with an emphasis on clarity and reuse
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Cross-functional collaboration with our developer partner and org leadership
Research & discovery
Research Approach: Through interviews and direct observation, our team conducted discovery sessions with stakeholders including admin staff and board members. I built detailed user personas (Admin, Parent) to capture real-world goals, tech skill levels, and frustrations.
Key Pain Points Discovered:
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Manual invoice generation: Staff individually creating and sending receipts to every parent for government reimbursement
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Physical payment collection: Teachers handling cash/checks instead of digital payments
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Spreadsheet data management: Manual editing of student/parent information across multiple Google Sheets
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Registration complexity: Hand-managing enrollment changes, transfers, and refunds
Critical User Need: Parents needed easy access to printable invoices for government grant reimbursement, plus online payment capability to eliminate physical transactions.
This parent portal requirement cascaded into additional admin needs: data editing, refund processing, student reassignment between parents, class transfers with automated credit calculations, and flexible coupon systems.
design strategy
The Challenge: Creating an interface that non-tech-savvy users could master quickly while handling complex administrative workflows.
My Solution: I built the entire system around a core principle of "one task per screen, with clear next steps" — ensuring users never felt overwhelmed or uncertain about their next action.
Systematic Implementation
To implement this approach consistently, I created a modular, atomic design system in Figma that emphasized:
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Reusable UI components (buttons, form fields, tables, task modules)
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Scalable layouts and color styles tied to semantic tokens
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Extensive documentation for long-term consistency
This component-based foundation not only ensured visual consistency but also enabled our developer to build future screens without needing new mockups — giving the system longevity beyond my direct involvement.
Design system documentation examples
Cognitive Load Reduction Strategy
Within this systematic framework, I focused on specific techniques to minimize the learning curve:
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Contextual navigation: Clear links to related actions without overwhelming options
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Consistent layouts: Reusing interface patterns to flatten the learning curve
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Familiar visual cues: Leveraging established UI conventions users already understand
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Progressive information disclosure: Showing minimal data with clear paths to additional details
Validated Through Real Workflows
Through 3 major design iterations with primary staff users, I refined complex admin tasks into guided flows that proved this approach worked in practice:
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Student transfers between households, with logic for relationship reassignment
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Class changes, including automated refund or credit handling
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One-click invoice generation, with line-item customization
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Expandable tables for fast verification and inline edits
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Contextual task access — edit, transfer, update, or invoice directly from any relevant page
Parent data table with expandable data and actions
Links to related actions
Student transfer module
One click invoice generation module
Quick edit info tables
Validation
Prior to launch, we validated the design through comprehensive walkthroughs and live demos with key stakeholders—the board and admin staff who will be primary users. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive:
Notably, one board member pushed for different defaults, but the primary user (an admin handling day-to-day tasks) defended our design as perfectly suited to her workflow — validating our user-centered approach.
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"Felt intuitive" and visually clean compared to their previous tool
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No confusion about navigating the interface — even among less tech-savvy users
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Linked views and actions helped tasks feel "connected and purposeful"
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Streamlined tools like multi-step modals made complex tasks feel manageable
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Consolidation of receipts/invoices into unified statements was a major UX win
results & impact
Cost Savings: $30,000/year saved (reduced from $40,000 to $10,000 annual system cost)
Operational Efficiency: Eliminated manual invoice creation, physical payment handling, and spreadsheet-based data management
User Empowerment: Parents gain self-service access to printable invoices for government reimbursement and online payment capability
Scale Preparation: System launches October 2025 following registration integration development, supporting 800+ students and 500+ parents
Future-Proofed: Design system enables development team to expand functionality without designer dependency
Key Takeaways
This project demanded clarity, empathy, and strong systems thinking. I had to deeply understand an under-resourced team's workflow, then empower them with tools that felt natural — not overwhelming. By focusing on reusable components and intelligent defaults, I designed something that outlives me, while still feeling highly personal and tailored.