Waterfall SDLC Documentation for a University Course Registration & Scheduling Web Portal

6. Design Phase: UI/UX, Pages, Validation, and Accessibility

Primary Student Pages

• Dashboard: registration status, active term, current credits, and upcoming registration window.
• Course Search: filters, result cards/table, availability, and course details.
• Section Details: meeting schedule, instructor, prerequisites, credits, and available seats.
• Schedule Builder: candidate sections arranged by day/time with detected conflicts.
• Registration Review: selected sections, validation results, and final confirmation action.
• My Schedule: enrolled sections, total credits, meeting schedule, and eligible drop actions.

Registrar Pages

• Administrative dashboard.
• Section enrollment view.
• Student registration lookup.
• Override creation and history.
• Registration audit search.

Registration Interaction Flow

1. Student selects an academic term.
2. Student searches and reviews course sections.
3. Student adds sections to the schedule builder.
4. The UI displays preliminary schedule conflicts.
5. Student opens Registration Review.
6. The server performs authoritative eligibility validation.
7. If all required rules pass, the enrollment transaction executes.
8. The portal displays the final result and updated schedule.

Validation Message Examples

• Prerequisite: “You have not satisfied the prerequisite for this course.”
• Conflict: “This section overlaps with a course already in your schedule.”
• Capacity: “This section currently has no available seats.”
• Window: “Registration changes are not available for your account at this time.”

Responsive Requirements

• Desktop navigation may use a persistent horizontal menu.
• Mobile navigation must collapse without hiding required registration actions.
• Wide course tables should become responsive cards or controlled horizontal regions on smaller screens.
• Primary Register, Review, Confirm, and Drop actions must remain clearly visible and understandable.
• Schedule information must remain understandable without relying only on color.

Accessibility Design

• Every form control has an associated text label.
• Error summaries identify failed fields or registration rules.
• Keyboard users can complete all critical workflows.
• Focus moves predictably after important validation or modal interactions.
• Status changes use text, icons, and accessible announcements where appropriate.
• Page headings follow a logical hierarchy.

UI Approval Artifact

The approved UI package is versioned as UI-SPEC-1.0 and includes page wireframes, responsive states, component rules, validation messages, navigation behavior, and registrar workflow screens.