ISU – International Student Union is an organization dedicated to providing support to international students in Italy. Through reception, orientation and counseling services, ISU facilitates the integration of students in Italian universities. To optimize the services offered, ISU has commissioned IWD – International Welcome Desk, a digital platform designed to centralize requests related to bureaucratic and academic practices.
The goal for the project was to create an intuitive app that allows international students to access essential services such as residence permit, Erasmus, internships and administrative support, reducing waiting times and simplifying communication with ISU and universities.
The design of IWD’s user experience was guided by the goal of making the interaction as inclusive and intuitive as possible, taking into account the cultural and linguistic diversity of end users. The platform was designed with a clear and readable interface and layout. Service request flows were simplified and divided into guided steps, to help the user complete the procedures without errors or confusion. During development, iterative tests were carried out with real students, collecting useful feedback to optimize every detail of usability and ensure effective onboarding from the first access.
IWD was developed using Ruby on Rails for the backend and web frontend, with Bootstrap integration to ensure a responsive and consistent interface. User authentication occurs through a Single Sign-On system developed in Go, which allows students to access the platform using their institutional credentials in complete safety. The database was structured in PostgreSQL, optimized to support a wide variety of document flows and real-time updates. In parallel with the web version, a mobile app was developed in Flutter, which replicates all the main features of the platform, allowing students to receive notifications, manage practices and communicate with referents directly from their smartphone.
