EWP Dashboard
Redesigning the tool European universities use to manage Erasmus+ mobility, as one system instead of disconnected modules.
- No.
- 03
- Year
- 2022–23
- Medium
- Web platform and design system
- Role
- UI/UX Designer, a role I created. I led four developers and interns through the build.
- Where
- Aristotle University IT Center, Thessaloniki, with the European University Foundation
- Worked with
- The European University Foundation and the four developers and interns I led
- Shows
- Design systems · Service design · Leadership · Research
- Status
- Live, now at 2,700+ institutions
The problem
The EWP Dashboard is the tool European universities use to manage Erasmus+ student mobility. I joined Aristotle University’s IT Center in December 2019 as a UI designer and web developer, and the team had no UX role. Nobody was asking why the tool was hard to use, so I made it my job: I ran the survey and, from 2022, led the redesign as the team’s UI/UX designer.
| Menu | Button | Listing | Filter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| My University | ||||
| OLA | ||||
| Short Term | ||||
| Applications | ||||
| IIA | ||||
| Erasmus+ App |
- Components: the same button, menu or listing drawn a different way in each module.
- Colour: every module in its own colours, with no shared visual language.
- Patterns: each team that built a part solved the same problem its own way.
| Menu | Button | Listing | Filter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| My University | ||||
| OLA | ||||
| Short Term | ||||
| Applications | ||||
| IIA | ||||
| Erasmus+ App |
- One component per job, reused in every module.
- One palette, where each colour has one job.
- One navigation and one filter pattern across every module.
I treated the complaints as symptoms of one system problem, not as screens to patch.
It had grown into a hub of six modules built at different times: My University, the Online Learning Agreement (OLA), Short Term, Applications, the inter-institutional agreements (IIA) and the Erasmus+ App. It felt like several separate apps stitched together. The interface complaints I kept hearing came from problems that ran through the whole tool: components that changed from module to module, no shared visual language, and every team that had built a part solving the same problem its own way.
What I did
Each step answered the survey: everything shown at once became one navigation and one filter pattern, the need for phones became a mobile layout, and separate modules became one system.
Ask 927 users what was wrong
More than half of respondents found it hard to create a new institutional agreement, and fewer than a quarter found reviewing one easy. About 35% would use it from a phone.
I designed and ran a survey, 17 questions, with 927 responses. I sent it by email through the universities’ internal mailing system, which I had access to. The complaints were specific: too much unnecessary information always present, no way to print a PDF version of an agreement, listings that were unintuitive and confusing. Two patterns stood out beyond the individual complaints: everything was shown at once regardless of relevance, and most people needed to do at least some of this from their phone.
In April 2022 I presented the findings and the improvements in the pipeline to over 1,000 users and stakeholders at Erasmus Goes Digital, a European University Foundation webinar.
Make status readable at a glance
I mapped status to colour throughout, accept, reject, pending, so people could scan a long list at a glance instead of reading every row, leaning on Jacob’s Law and recognition over recall.
The old dashboard used blue, and red in a few places, as decoration. None of it said anything about status, so you had to read every row to know where an application stood.
Gold is always your move, blue means you’ve acted and are waiting, green is done, red is rejected. Two more exist in one module each.
- Action must be taken by you
- Action taken, waiting for a response
- Completed
- Rejected
- Waiting list (nominations only)
- Draft (inter-institutional agreements only)
An Online Learning Agreement is signed in turn: by the student, then the sending university, then the receiving one. Each university sees the same agreement on its own card, and gold marks whose turn it is.
- 1UnsignedSending universityWaiting for the studentReceiving universityNot visible yet
- 2The student signsSending universityYour turn to signReceiving universityNot visible yet
- 3The sending university signsSending universityWaiting for the receiving universityReceiving universityYour turn to sign
- 4The receiving university signsSending universitySigned by all threeReceiving universitySigned by all three
Changes to a signed agreement go through the same steps again, and this time the receiving university sees them from the start.
One design system for six modules
The old E+ Dashboard β mark, outlined text buttons, colours that changed from module to module.
- BlueWaiting, primary actions
- MagentaBrand accent, current place
- GreenCompleted, accept
- RedRejected, reject
- GoldYour turn, edit
- Teal greyDraft, add
A logo, six colours with one job each, one button family.
I based it on Bootstrap because the developers already knew it. The cost was overrides instead of design tokens, which I would not do again.
I built a design system, based on Bootstrap, as the foundation for the new interface: a type scale, a button system with every interaction state (active, hover, click, disabled), and one consistent icon set, so the same component behaved the same way in every module instead of a different way in each. We chose Bootstrap because I had little experience at that point and wanted a clean base to build on. I also designed the visual identity, including a new logo, replacing the old E+ Dashboard β mark.
Stay close through the build
I prototyped the redesign in Figma, handed it to the development team, then led four developers and interns through the build, in constant contact with the European University Foundation’s stakeholders so the shipped product matched the design intent. The hard part was the trade-off between quality and time, and between what users wanted and what product management wanted.
The survey said most people needed to do at least some of this from a phone, so the redesign was laid out for mobile as well as desktop, as in the screens above.
It was the first time I’d managed a build like this, and it pushed my communication and project-management skills harder than the design work itself did.
How it went
Used by around 80% of the universities running Erasmus+ study exchanges (those holding the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education, the charter every university needs to take part).
The redesign I led is the version still running, centre stage at the EAIE Conference, Gothenburg, September 2025.
EC-funded, used by 217 of the 220 top-performing institutions, and 97% of users give its helpdesk a thumbs up.
Built by Universities, Powered by Europe
- User-friendly
- Robust and Reliable
- A community of 2700+ institutions
Three years later, at EAIE 2025 in Gothenburg, the identity was still in use.
At the EWP Dashboard’s first stand at the European Association for International Education conference, the roll-up carried the logo, colours and type I designed in 2022, the identity of a tool that now serves a community of 2,700+ institutions.
See the stand in the European University Foundation’s photos (opens in a new tab)
The redesigned Dashboard was later presented at another European University Foundation webinar, where the comments were very positive.
In February 2026 the European University Foundation wrote that the Dashboard “is, probably, the unsung hero of the EWP digital revolution”. It is a free tool for universities that cannot build their own connection to the system, first tested in 2016 and public since 2017, now used by some of Europe’s largest universities, including Oslo, Leiden, Lisbon and Athens. It has kept growing since my redesign, with a multilingual interface, course catalogues and nominations in its latest versions.
What I learned
Test with real users as well as surveying them, and build accessibility in from day one.
Design tokens instead of Bootstrap overrides, and success metrics such as task success and time on task, defined up front and measured before and after.
My first time managing a build, and it pushed my communication harder than the design work did.
If I did it again, I’d push harder for moderated sessions, to see what people do as well as what they say. And I’d never let a status rest on colour alone, which is exactly what the status system above still does.
It was my first large-scale project, and it asked me to combine research, design, leadership and communication.