STA Blog

✧⋆ Week 6 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 6: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Basic Training: History of Design ⋆✧

One of the trainings I've done this week had to do with learning all the different art styles there have been throughout the decade! I decided to go with the 1950s – 1970s: Pop Art era!
I really wanted to use Photoshop since I have less confidence in that application, and thankfully there was a tutorial for Photoshop!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSaoVbOZNk

Using this tutorial, I made my own design inspired by the Pop Art Era. I noted that a lot of the subjects used in Pop Art were iconic as they have "recognizable imagery." I wanted to make Pop Art for this current era, and I needed the perfect subject to represent that. The first person that came to mind for me was Alysa Liu!
It was very fun being able to use Photoshop again and seeing the kind of effects I can apply to an image! I used to prefer Photoshop over Illustrator back when I was first learning the two, and though I wouldn't say that's the case anymore, it's really cool to see what Photoshop is capable of!

✧⋆ Overall ⋆✧

It's really cool to see the kind of trainings available to Design STA's! Things have been calking down with the end of the semester, so being able to focus on improving my own skills in Adobe programs has been really nice.

March & April Updates

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2026 STA Presentation

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This semester I had the opportunity to present at LAITS’s annual STA presentation! I was so excited to talk about one of my favorite projects being my work on the What Jane Saw badge design. Although it was a bit nerve-wracking standing and talking in front of so many people, I’m grateful to be in this position surrounded by such lovely people who listened to my presentation!

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2026 STA Presentation Virtual HTML

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I also assisted in updating the Virtual HTML for the 2026 STA Presentation! Shanda had communicated to me that I would need to update the banner, graphics, and poster to reflect this year’s theme!

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Luckily, my fellow STAs had already made such beautiful graphics and templates so I adjusted the frames to reflect the subtitles. First, I decided to use a sky background for all the frames but Shanda recommended to add some variation and we decided it was the better choice!

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Next I worked on the banner created by Tomas! Thanks to his helpful template, I created two versions of the banner, one being an orange theme and the other a blue theme!

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What I have been showing so far were just mockups, so the real challenge came which was working in HTML. I hadn’t had much experience working with HTML so there was definitely some learning I had to do. Some challenges I ran upon included:

  • mobile layout not matching desktop layout
  • text not being centered
  • finding accurate fonts

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However, I did get the website to look like my mockups as closely as possible! I added any new assets and sent over the finished website to De’sha and Shanda for approval!

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I’m so glad I had the opportunity to work on this project as it brushed up some of my HTML and it was rewarding to be able to send the link to my family and friends knowing that I helped create the graphics and adjusted the layout for the website!

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check the website here: https://virtualmeeting.la.utexas.edu/meet/2026-laits-sta-presentation

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WCAG Compliance Project

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I have also been working on the WCAG Compliance project alongside Kate and Trisha! So far, I have going over the website that LAITS oversees and checking if it is compliant with WCAG’s standards!

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This project has really shed some light in how accessibility in websites needs more awareness and as a designer and a programmer, I hope to advocate for it more through my own projects and through adjusting the websites as well!

WCAG

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WCAG

Task: Make sure all utexas websites are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliant

Status: In Progress

1. Run an Accessibility Scan

2. Review Issues

3. Understand Issues

4. Find False Positives

5. Get Compliance to 90%+

6. Update Spreadsheet

Tower Tools

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Reimagining the Video Stream Experience for Tower Tools

Link to Design: https://www.figma.com/design/ki1XLGNEbBCAsqPdebSkKD/TOWER-UX-UI-Revamp?node-id=0-1&t=JWHK67f26uFuscOd-1

The initial request for this project centered on enhancing the Tower Tools experience to better support student clarity, confidence, and engagement. This presented an opportunity to modernize the interface so it aligns with current accessibility expectations, evolving 2026 academic standards, and LAITS branding. By redesigning the UI/UX of the video stream layout, this project aims to deliver a more polished, accessible, and confidence‑building experience, one that strengthens existing workflows while elevating the overall perception and usability of the platform.

The Current State

The current platform is highly minimal. While it works, it lacks the visual structure and feedback that help students feel grounded and confident in a digital classroom.

Where It Falls Short

The current experience works but it lacks presence.

The goals for this project were to change that through creating designs that:

  • Feel modern and aligned with a 2026 design standard
  • Support student workflows without disruption
  • Build trust and clarity through thoughtful interface design
  • Meet updated accessibility guidelines (WCAG)
  • Integrate LAITS branding in a cohesive way

Framing the Problem

How might we redesign the current tower tools interface to increase student engagement & understanding?

In a physical classroom, students receive constant feedback:

  • They can see peers reacting
  • They can gauge pacing and engagement
  • They know where they are in the lecture

In a virtual environment, much of that disappears.

From this, I identified three core design focus areas:

History of Football Course Poster

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2026 Summer Marketing | History of Football Course Poster

My first summer marketing assignment was to create a promotional poster for the History of Football course. I was instructed to make sure the poster is eye-catching with a strong cover image, so that students walking by will take notice.

★ Design Iterations: Because the project was operating on such a short timeline (the poster needed to be distributed quickly, as it is marketing for the summer), I immediately started creating a polished draft for the poster.

To follow existing visual design guidelines for the course, I used the color gradient and photo assets that were in the course box folder. I was also inspired by the online course promotions for this year and wanted to make the poster look consistent, so I added in some dynamic, rounded lines. I additionally included stars to break up the text and evoke imagery of Texas. 

After creating this draft, I received feedback that the design needed to be a bit more punchy to fully capture the eye-catching effect needed to advertise the course and the bold spirit of football. I was advised to take a look at newspaper headlines for football. Taking these considerations into account, I refocused my design approach to align with a newspaper theme, and created the following designs:

These designs were much more effective at capturing the energetic, bold spirit of football with the typeface and focus on a central image. The client decided to go with the right design, and the design was slightly edited to better emphasize that the “summer and online” aspect of the course.

★ Final Design:

★ Project Status: Completed (04/02/26)

★ Project Reflection: This is the first project I have worked on with such a tight deadline. My first iterations were created on one shift, and the next shift I was asked to finalize the poster. I learned a lot about managing my time and prioritizing both good design and functionality of a product; with such a short working time, I made sure to prioritize including all necessary text and information on the poster, even if the design was not yet perfect. Additionally, I was able to alter the poster to better communicate the exciting, bold nature of the course, making it a more engaging and effective promotional material.

✧⋆ Week 4 – Isa ⋆✧

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🍓 Week 4: Training Progress 🍓

✧⋆ Helpdesk Place Card Redesign ⋆✧

✧⋆ After showing the last designs to the client, they loved it! 
✧⋆ This card will be placed in over 1,000 classrooms this Summer to help UT faculty and staff. I'm so honored to be contributing in a way that will help UT faculty and staff get the information they need!

✧⋆ Passion Project ⋆✧

✧⋆ Last week's STA meeting we covered how to present properly. I learned that a vital part of presenting is storytelling, to be able to walk the audience through an entire project from start to finish assuming they knew nothing about it is key.
✧⋆ My passion project involves the work I've done with the Texas Cultural Trust! I won't get into too many details, but this project has taught me a lot about how to communicate more effectively with stakeholders.

✧⋆ We learned that the project was out of our scope. We needed to tell our client a more realistic goal, but this only happened deep into the project. Our team had already expressed these concerns way before, but we never talked with the client about these concerns. I took away that I needed to not be so afraid to speak up and not waste anybody's time.

✧⋆ I have presented to my organization who are already aware of many of the details, so having to present this project in front of people who had no context was both a challenge and very helpful.

✧⋆ Tier 3 Course Studio Graphics ⋆✧

✧⋆ I was tasked with making an animated intro for a class of my choice. I decided to go with an informatics course called Online Communities. I started ideating with my iPad, sketching out general placement and icons I was thinking of including.

✧⋆ Storyboard: I wanted to have each icon rotate back and forth in the animation
✧⋆ Final: I decided to make the course name and number look as if it were a message and I animated it like one! I made it so that only the white icons rotated back and forth as I found it too much with every graphic. I went to Illustrator first to make all the graphics, made each layer separate and named it properly, and brought that into After Effects to animate.

✧⋆ Overall ⋆✧

✧⋆ Having to present was really useful! I need to improve on my storytelling and rehearsing beforehand would help me with my stuttering issue and confidence.

✧⋆ I haven't used After Effects too much, so having to animate studio graphics was out of my comfort zone. It was really interesting to learn and I am a lot more comfortable with making keyframes now!