Univero: helping applicants find, choose and apply to universities abroad
Role:
Product Designer
Timeline:
2021 – 2022
My scope:
user research, UX strategy, product design
Univero is a platform that helps students find universities, apply, and explore funding in one place. I ran the discovery research and used it to define the product’s goals and design.
At a glance
Problem. Information about studying abroad was scattered and hard to trust, and applying meant jumping between sites.
My part. Market and competitor analysis, 9 interviews, synthesis into job stories and product goals, then product design.
Result. 6–7K users in the first month.
PROBLEM
Applicants from Kazakhstan chose universities through personal recommendations and scattered websites, often with incomplete information. Three of the five applicants I interviewed had formed expectations from university or blogger sites that no longer matched the real criteria. Admission agencies filled the gap, because applying took more time and resources than most families had.
RESEARCH
Market. The number of international students worldwide grew from about 5.6 million in 2018 to 7.5 million in 2022 (UNESCO, Center for Educational Policy of RANEPA).
Competitors. I compared three alternatives across seven criteria: Unipage, StudyAbroad.com, and an intergovernmental grants program. All three were strong on relevance and variety of choices, but none of them tracked submission deadlines or recommended suitable universities. Only the grants program allowed online submission, and only Unipage helped users choose.
Interviews. I interviewed 5 applicants and 4 experts: 3 curators from 2 admission agencies and 1 sales manager. I started with four assumptions and tested each one:
What I learned. Applicants rely heavily on the opinions of parents and close people. Most want to study in big cities. Some parents believe that a local university is easier and cheaper than a foreign one. People need a source of information they can trust, and quality education at reasonable prices.
Persona. I drafted a proto-persona for one segment, a confident applicant who knows what she wants, as a reference for design decisions.
GOALS
From the interviews I wrote four job stories: keep personal data and documents safe, find universities that match my interests, find out what funding is available, and never miss deadlines and required documents.
They led to How Might We questions, such as how to provide a reliable source of information and how to help users choose a university by their preferences. The brainstorm produced ideas like university ratings, comments, links to official sources, filtering and sorting, and expert consultation.
I then compared business goals and user goals. Three goals were shared:
Attract university representatives
Increase trust
Make document submission intuitive
DESIGN
Each gap became a feature
The platform also shipped as a mobile app.
Results
6–7K
Users in the first month
+30%
Page depth
45% faster
Navigation speed
₸10M
Partner revenue
These are team results. My part was the research that set the product’s goals, and the design that followed.
REFLECTION
What I’d do differently
I interviewed five applicants and four admission experts, but not the parents who shaped so many decisions, and not university representatives. Business goals came from public coverage of the company, not from stakeholder conversations. Next time I would speak to parents and universities directly, and test the business goals with stakeholders before building on them.
