A Love Letter to the Emory Course Atlas
Emory CS 485: HCI
With an elegant appearance and breathtaking performance, she outshines all the other websites on Emory’s campus. Woefully underrated, she astounds every user with her powerful functionality. She is the Emory University Course ATLAS, a staple to the Emory experience.
A Hopeful Light In the Dark World of Course Registration
Everyone who has experienced course registration at Emory knows that it is an emotional rollercoaster of OPUS crashes, internet connectivity issues, and waitlists longer than the DCT lines at lunch-rush.
Just listen to the desperate cries from students this semester:
This course registration makes me want to unplug EmoryUnplugged…
But amidst this dark experience that characterizes the beginning of each new semester is a beacon of hope. The beautiful and functional Emory Course Atlas.
Launched in the summer of 2019 in an attempt to salvage the sanity of Emory students, this new course ATLAS showcases that web apps can indeed be helpful and aesthetic. It contains a simple webpage that provides the gateway to all courses past and present at Emory University.
What's the hype?
After reading that poetic introduction, you may be asking yourself: what really is so great about this one website?
To that, I say…what isn't great about it? The ATLAS contains all of the elements necessary to swoon any Emory Student:
- Simple Yet Powerful Functions
The ATLAS is brilliantly designed to be functional for any user within seconds. The website keeps things simple by focusing on the singular purpose of helping students identify the courses they need.
But don’t underestimate the power that can be contained within this simplicity. Through a single search, the ATLAS can sort through hundreds of courses to identify the courses that match your search criteria.
As displayed in the image above, the user can type a search based on keywords, course numbers, instructors, or subjects. Furthermore, they can refine their search by applying filters to the search. And the best part is that this functionality is all contained within a 300x500 pixel toolbox (simplicity!).
2. Elegant UI
Speaking of simplicity, we must take a moment to admire the elegance of the page design. The page is broken into three segments: toolbar, image, and recommended courses.
These three segments are well balanced to highlight both aesthetics and functionality as the image does not distract from the main toolbar and the course recommendations subtly highlight important options.
This elegant UI design allows the user to have a pleasant experience as they search for classes.
3. Adaptive Interface
Now some may say, “you can’t have it all!” Arguing that by prioritizing elegance you lose functionality. However, the Emory course ATLAS showcases that it is possible to maintain both advanced function and beautiful design by adapting the interface to the needs of the user.
Although at first glance the toolbar is simple, you can scroll to enable more advanced settings for advanced users (i.e. nerds).
These advanced features enable the user to search by session, course status, and an array of other filters to ensure optimal search results.
Furthermore, as you continue your search the webpage adapts to prioritize the information you WANT to see.
With just a few clicks the page transforms to a masterful display of course information.
This progressive complexity of the webpage adapts to the user’s state of mind as they deepen their search into the courses offered. By showing only the relevant information when the user wants to see it the webpage maintains its simplicity and in turn the sanity of the user.
It is this adaptive interface that makes the Emory Course ATLAS truly phenomenal.
Summary
The Emory Course ATLAS is a brilliant composition of simplicity, elegance, and functionality all captured in an adaptive interface. Most importantly it is the keystone to the sanity of Emory students during the hectic experience of registering for courses.
Imagine what a wonderful world it would be if all Emory webpages could be like this beauty.