Enhancing University Admission Website Usability Through Heuristic Principles

Abstract

University admission websites serve as the primary digital gateway through which prospective students access critical enrollment information; however, many suffer from persistent usability deficiencies that hinder effective information retrieval. This study examines the usability challenges of the Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) admission website (admisi.unesa.ac.id) and proposes a systematically redesigned interface grounded in Jakob Nielsen's 10 Heuristic Principles within a Design Thinking framework. A preliminary survey and empathy mapping were conducted to identify key user pain points. Based on these empirical findings, 34 specific design implementation points were systematically mapped across all 10 heuristic principles to guide the development of a high-fidelity prototype. The redesigned interface addresses the identified usability gaps through improved visual hierarchy, consistent typography, streamlined navigation, enhanced content accessibility, and mobile-first layout considerations. This research demonstrates that a structured heuristic-based redesign approach can significantly improve the usability and user experience of university admission websites, ultimately supporting prospective students in making informed enrollment decisions. It should be noted that the present study adopts Design Thinking solely as the underlying conceptual framework guiding the design process; the scope of this research is delimited to the mapping of heuristic principles onto the resulting user interface, rather than an evaluation of the complete Design Thinking output.