Caltech Responsive eCommerce eLearning UX Design

Caltech (California Institute of Technology) is a renowned private research university based in California, US. Their Center for Technology & Management Education department relied on manual course sales conducted via email. This approach generated approximately $2.5M annually with a 1% conversion rate. The original enrollment system was so complex that it required a detailed step-by-step user guide for students to navigate.

Challenge

- Manual sales process: Time-consuming and resource-intensive.
- Limited scalability: Growth was constrained by the manual nature of the process.
- User experience: The website did not support seamless, automated course enrollment.
- Goal: Enhance the website's user experience and automate course sales to drive growth.

Solution

- Information Architecture: Removed clutter, simplified course info and sitemap.
- User Experience: Improved navigation, course filtering, and streamlined checkout.
- Automated course enrollment via Adobe Commerce, creating an integrated digital infrastructure where tools, teams, and processes work together seamlessly.

Results

- 136% increase in active users (comparing Jan-Nov 2024 to Jan-Nov 2025).
- 1,311% increase in add-to-carts.
- 204% increase in purchases.
- 2.4K first-time purchases and 2.5K total purchases in 2025.
- $2.8M in revenue from site checkouts (individuals only; organizational sales occur outside the site and represent the larger part of the business). This transformation gave Caltech an unfair advantage, skyrocketing individual enrollments through UX/CRO.

Credits: UI design by Guidance

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