Nathan McAllister
22/11/2025
The Ulster University portal is the main access point to everything you may need to access either as a student or lecturer at Ulster University. It gives access to account links such as email and one drive, courses and modules such as Blackboard Learn Ultra which is used to access the sources for a course as well as featuring services and support such as IT Services and class timetables.
As a student there are two main tabs ‘Home’ and ‘Students’ which the ‘Students’ page has way more content but also shares the content which is very confusing on why there are two pages rather than just having the one with all content. Inside these pages there seems to be no hierarchy which the only thing I would only use on the portal is Blackboard which I use to access everything related to my course. In previous experience it was also quite hard to know when and how to find my grades, there was nothing to say that the grades would be on the portal which is something I don't really use as I find there is too much going on to find what I want.
When reviewing the UU Portal, I found that having separate “Home” and “Students” pages causes unnecessary clicks and confusion, as some buttons are duplicated while others are hidden. The portal should instead adapt a single homepage based on whether the user is a student or lecturer.
The “Apps” feature below these pages felt unnecessary and confusing, making it seem like content might be missing. I also noticed accessibility issues with poor colour contrast, such as the blue and grey on the “Disability” icon failing WCAG contrast checks.
The colour palette could be expanded, as some colour-coded sections are too similar or reused for different topics, which adds to the confusion. Icons are also often too similar or unclear, forcing users to rely heavily on text. Larger, more distinctive icons would improve clarity.
The notifications are currently useless, they could be used for example to notify when grades are available and a link to find them.