Prioritize functionality, student needs in tech upgrades

By Thresher Editorial Board     12/3/24 10:32pm

Between ESTHER, Degree Works and Navigate, students have a plethora of technological platforms for everything from viewing financial aid to keeping track of graduation requirements. Despite being necessary for students, these platforms often are visually clunky, redundant or just don’t work.

The new ESTHER redesign is more modernized than the original. However, what it made up in aesthetics it lost in functionality. There is no search bar, which is necessary for information buried deep within the interface such as when final exams are scheduled and class waitlist positions. Most of the links on the home page redirect users to the old ESTHER interface instead, except for the few that don’t, and make accessing that old ESTHER a pain. ‘Stale request’ errors complicate matters even more when students are forced to switch browsers to log in.  

We’re not a fan of Degree Works either. While Rice adjusts major requirements each year, Degree Works can take years to keep up, displaying faulty information. This isn’t just inconvenient — with a barrage of degree requirements, students inaccurately believing they’ve completed requirements can cause unneeded stress. For a system designed to predict graduation progress, it barely fulfills its role. 

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Navigate360 isn’t faring much better. Its purpose of setting up appointments mainly with language consultants, study abroad advisors and divisional advisors is completely redundant when faced with the high-tech solution of email or Calendly. The “study buddies” it attempts to facilitate fall flat when students meet and form study groups on their own.

This is especially relevant for incoming freshmen, who are made to use Navigate during O-Week despite technical difficulties. During O-Week 2024, students struggled to book appointments with their divisional advisors because the search function was not functional and the profiles for some DAs did not display the right locations or times, forcing advisors and affiliates to pick up the slack and organize the appointments. Most of these students will never use the app again during their time at Rice — for good reason.

Upgrading Rice’s software and hardware is a noble goal, but it needs to be targeted in the right way. Rather than creating interfaces and systems that look good but are prone to error, Rice could instead take a leaf out of other universities’ books and focus on technology that students will actually use and benefit from.

Lacking features like a search bar doesn’t help students navigate the interfaces they need to register for classes or find their financial aid packages, but giving them a version of their student IDs on smartphones or Apple Watches, as Duke and Vanderbilt do respectively, just might save them time getting around campus. 

Critical online and offline tools that directly impact the quality of student life need to prioritize functionality and efficiency in order to improve student life. While Rice has good intentions in redesigning ESTHER, it could benefit from instead listening to students, user tests and focus groups before launch and coming up with solutions that will ease their burdens going forward. 

Editor’s Note: Thresher editorials are collectively written by the members of the Thresher’s editorial board. Current members include Riya Misra, Spring Chenjp, Maria Morkas, Sarah Knowlton, Sammy Baek, Shruti Patankar, Juliana Lightsey, Arman Saxena and Kathleen Ortiz.

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