User-Centric Agile Redesign of the Thesis Management System for Politecnico di Torino

This thesis focuses on the analysis, design, and development of a new integrated thesis management procedure within the Politecnico di Torino teaching portal. Following the release of the new student application, the development of the new Teaching Portal started, and in this context, it was necessary to redesign some sections, including the one dedicated to thesis management. The research started with an in-depth investigation of the entire thesis life cycle, from initial application to registration for the final exam, analyzing the roles and interactions of students, teachers, and administrative staff both at the process level and on existing interfaces. Subsequently, a needfinding activity was carried out on students to identify their needs and the main critical issues related to thesis management. These analyses revealed several usability problems, particularly in the section dedicated to the consultation of thesis proposals, which often made it difficult for students to navigate efficiently between the available options. For this reason, the implementation phase focused on redesigning the thesis proposal consultation interface, introducing improvements in the search and filtering mechanisms to enhance usability and extend the functionalities currently available. The new design, developed based on feedback collected through interviews and refined through usability testing, ensures a more modern, accessible interface aligned with real user needs. The result of this thesis is a React web application designed to be integrated into the new Teaching Portal and released as an open-source project. The application introduces a new interface for browsing thesis proposals aligned with the design system of the new portal, expanding it with a dark palette, currently not present. In addition to the front-end interface, a back-end was developed based on the RESTful API specification defined according to the OpenAPI 3.0 standard. This environment uses real data, which has been normalized to improve the structure of the currently existing thesis proposals. The proposed solution ensures smooth integration with other institutional services, providing scalability and interoperability within the digital ecosystem of the Politecnico di Torino.