FIU Mobile
Redefining FIU's student mobile hub
FIU Mobile is the official app for Florida International University, built for students to access class schedules, campus resources, financial aid, and real-time updates in one place. As Lead Product Designer, I pitched the concept to the Director of FIU IT, led the 0 → 1 redesign end-to-end, and owned the UX strategy that repositioned the app as the central hub for daily student life on campus.
The Challenge:
FIU Mobile held a 2.8 out of 5 App Store rating, with students actively disengaging due to slow performance, buried navigation, and persistent login friction on everyday tasks like checking class times. The app was meant to be a central hub for 70,000+ users but had become a liability for the university's digital reputation. Research with over 600 students confirmed the issue: 96% used the app weekly, meaning every usability failure compounded across the entire student body.
The Strategy:
I led surveys and interviews with 600+ students to map real usage patterns and isolate the friction points driving churn. I rebuilt the information architecture around a personalized dashboard surfacing class schedules, digital ID, campus maps, and academics as first-class entry points, replacing the cluttered menu structure that had buried them. I partnered directly with engineering to re-design login flows and real-time updates, eliminating the session timeouts that were breaking quick-task use cases.
The Outcome:
The relaunch drove a 93% increase in monthly active users and raised the App Store rating from 2.8 to 4.5. Over 5,000 new users signed up within the first 24 hours of launch, and FIU was subsequently ranked #1 Public University for Student Experience by the Wall Street Journal. The redesigned patterns established a new mobile standard for FIU's digital ecosystem.
