Studyizy helps international students search for educational opportunities in Canada, but the experience was asking for too much precision too early.
I redesigned the search flow so students could start broad, recover from dead ends, and narrow with more confidence instead of getting lost in local details they did not yet understand.
Simplify the program-search experience for students applying from abroad, many of whom did not have enough local knowledge to navigate highly specific filters with confidence.
Role: UX Designer
Focus: Search experience
Users: International students
Market: Canada
One of the biggest friction points was location filtering. Students were asked to choose from a long list of individual cities such as Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, or Waterloo before they had enough context to know which one was right for them.
The product offered technical precision, but not helpful structure. That often led to over-narrowing, incorrect choices, and zero-results states with no obvious recovery path.
Before
What Users Needed
I reviewed the full search flow and focused on the moments where the interface asked for more certainty than users realistically had. The redesign made the experience broader, more forgiving, and easier to recover from.
A broader, more guided search flow helped students understand the landscape first, then narrow with more confidence.
Instead of forcing students to search city by city, I redesigned the filters to support broader geographic clusters such as the Greater Toronto Area, Vancouver-adjacent options, or other regional groupings.
This matched how international students actually frame the decision: not “Which exact nearby city should I pick?” but “What opportunities are available in this broader area?”
02. Better Defaults and Recovery
I adjusted the default search behavior so students could see useful options earlier, instead of being pushed immediately into narrow choices that produced empty results.
When users still reached a zero-results state, I redesigned that moment to offer recovery: broadening criteria, adjusting location, or exploring nearby alternatives rather than hitting a dead end.
Zero-Results Recovery
No matches found for your current filters.
Similar versions of the same program used to appear as separate cards, such as morning versus afternoon schedules or intensive versus regular formats.
I consolidated these into a more unified card structure, so users could understand the program as one clear option while still seeing its available variations inside the card.
This reduced visual clutter and made it easier to compare actual differences instead of scanning through multiple near-duplicate listings.
The redesigned cards group related schedules and formats into a single, scannable result instead of forcing users to compare multiple nearly identical listings.
The redesign made the search experience simpler and more confidence-building. Users could start broad, understand the landscape, and narrow down with more certainty instead of feeling punished for not knowing the system in advance.
Search Flow
Broader starting points instead of premature precision.
Recovery
Zero-results states became moments of guidance, not failure.
Information Design
Program variants became easier to compare inside a unified structure.
More control does not always mean a better experience. For users without local knowledge, good design means offering structure, sensible defaults, and clear recovery paths rather than forcing precision too early.