ANU Enrolment, redesigned

A prototype replacement for the part of ISIS students use to add courses. You search the First Semester 2027 postgraduate computing courses by code, name or keyword; every course says whether you can take it, and why not, before you press anything; one press enrols you, and your plan and your week update beside the list. Enrolments are stored in SQLite, so they survive a reload and a redeploy.

The enrolment page: a searchable list of courses, each marked with whether you can take it, beside your plan and a week grid showing a clash

What good looks like here

I walked the real ISIS add-a-course flow in a logged-in session and recorded all nine screens (docs/research/isis-enrolment.md in the repo). Adding one course took two different “Add Class” buttons, an error dialog in between, a final button called “Save”, and only then did the system say whether I was allowed to enrol at all. Courses were identified by a class number nobody knows, titles were truncated, and nothing showed prerequisites or teaching times. Good, here, is the opposite of each of those:

Tell before, not after. Every course carries its verdict: “You can take this”, “You need Introduction to Machine Learning first”, “Needs a permission code. Entry is competitive.” Reasons name courses by title and say what to do; there are no error codes.
One step. Enrol is the commit. The confirmation names the course and offers Undo; Drop sits on every row of the plan.
Find a course by what you know. One search box takes a code, a title or a keyword. Filters are a plain form, so a filtered list is a link and works with JavaScript off.
See the week. Each card says when the course meets, which sessions are fixed and which you pick later. The plan draws your week and names any clash in words.

The same page on a phone: the plan collapses to a summary bar above the list

Judgement calls

A clash is a warning, not a refusal. Students sometimes take a clash on purpose (a recorded lecture, a tutorial they can move), so the page makes it impossible to miss and leaves the choice with them.
Requirements are enforced where a record can decide them. Completed courses, courses in this semester’s plan, program and incompatible courses are checked. What no record can show (a permission code, a project group, competitive entry) isn’t checked; those courses can’t be enrolled in here.
The unit load is 24 per semester. Going over is refused, with the total it would have reached.
Real data, labelled where it’s borrowed. Courses, descriptions, requirements and dates come from ANU Programs and Courses. The 2027 timetable isn’t published, so teaching times are the First Semester 2026 ones, and the page says so.

What is enforced, and what is judged

The tests in spec/ hold the promises that don’t depend on taste: a course enrolled in is still there after a reload; the server refuses a course that isn’t offered, a duplicate, an unmet requirement and a plan over 24 units, each with a 4xx and a reason; dropping works and can’t touch another student’s plan; a clash enrols with a warning; other open tabs hear about a change; and each kind of page (home, enrolment, a course, this one) passes the accessibility floor. Unit tests hold the requirement and clash rules, including that reasons use titles, not codes.

The visual design and the words are judgement. Colour contrast was checked by hand in both light and dark mode, because the automated accessibility pass can’t measure it.

What I chose not to build

Logging in. Three demo students stand in for it (below).
Permission codes, waitlists and fees. The course says a permission code is needed; applying for one is out of scope.
Picking tutorial times. The plan lists which classes you choose later.
Teaching weeks. A session that runs only some weeks is drawn as weekly, which can show a clash that happens only part of the semester.

Try it as

Use “Viewing as” at the top of the page to switch between three fictional students:

Alex Morgan, Master of Computing, part-way through: nine courses are open to start with, and the rest say what’s missing.
Priya Raman, Master of Computing (Advanced), just started: program rules decide most of what’s open.
Jordan Ellis, Master of Computing, final semester, already on 18 units: shows the load limit and a clash in the week.

Data

Course details are from ANU Programs and Courses, teaching times from the ANU timetable, both fetched on 28 September 2026 and committed as a snapshot. This is a student prototype, not an ANU service.