I led UX design for two interactive stations within the Texas State Technical College (TSTC) Welcome Center, helping prospective students bridge the gap between their education and career.

Stepping outside of laptops and phones, this work was showcased on several 55″ displays, requiring a mix of UX, spatial, and accessible design thinking —earning positive reviews from our client and an expansion to other campuses.

A look ahead. Here, we repurposed the
TSTC star as a UI element.

Finish high school. Go to college. Get a job. It's the well-worn promise of traditional post-secondary education. And for many students, a broken promise that leaves them to figure out how their credentials connect to potential careers.

In Waco Texas, however, they're drinking a different kind of kool-aid (in the words of our client). TSTC looks more like a hands-on workshop than a lecture hall—rows of welding stations, utility poles, and students in work boots instead of backpacks.

The staff here have one mission. Help more Texans land well-paying jobs. But first, Texans need to know about it. Better yet, they need to see the opportunity.

Design and build two interactive stations within TSTC’s new Welcome Center—raising awareness to the school’s mission and wide range of programs, elevating the brand’s perception, and positioning TSTC as a launching pad for real careers in the eyes of prospective students.

I led UX for both interactive stations, translating strategic insights, user research, and accessibility best practices into the core UX artifacts that shaped the multi-screen, large-format interactive experience.

Before designing anything, we needed to understand TSTC at its core, asking:

1. Who are they?

2. Who do they serve?

3. What makes them different?

Over the course of two full day workshops, we investigated these questions with TSTC stakeholders, exploring their goals, their vision for the Welcome Center, and the diverse audiences they hoped to reach.

These conversations gave us both empathy and direction—clarifying the needs, anxieties, and motivations of future students, surfacing the key business goals and messages that would shape the story this space needed to tell.

With the workshop insights in hand, my next move was to translate them into something the client and internal team could align behind.

Working closely with our strategist, I scanned through the summary notes, asking:

1. What information are users searching for?

2. What already exists?

3. What structures would best support the experience?

Then, with the answers to those questions as context, I plotted story beats, defined an information architecture, and developed three personas from our initial mindsets.

With the foundation in place, we shifted into execution—designing a responsive, accessible experience for large-format touchscreens that brought TSTC’s story, programs, and career paths to life.

I created a clickable prototype and tested it with university students, co-writing the testing script, observing the session, and translating the results into actionable takeaways for the team.

We designed a system that supported both local and global movement. Users could see where they were and shift between industries and programs easily. Contextual tags like “popular” or “high earning” guided exploration.

Designing for a fixed-height touchscreen meant no vertical scroll. I researched ADA standards and real-world examples—walking malls and reading accessibility white papers—to make the experience inclusive.This led to one of my proudest contributions: an accessibility toggle that let users lower the interface for easier reach.

We used cards, carousels, and tabs to accommodate videos, data, testimonials, and text—delivering rich content without overwhelming the screen.

We aimed for a look that was technologically forward, but still human. The TSTC star was even repurposed as a UI element. Visual design was fast-paced, collaborative, and constantly evolving.

Both stations launched in summer 2024. At a board dinner hosted in the Welcome Center, one of our lead stakeholders summed it up:

“People freaking love this place.”

And a few months later, TSTC reached out to extend the work to other campuses—a testament to the value of the experience we helped bring to life.