2024
2025
MGIMO Digital ESG Library
A digital academic ESG library for MGIMO University.
Back to works
Before this project existed, MGIMO’s ESG materials (Environmental, Social, Governance) were scattered across five separate sources: a physical library, the university website, external drives, paper publications, and informal student networks. There was no unified access system: obtaining restricted materials required personal requests to faculty or the dean’s office, with approval taking days to a week. No search, no filtering, no permissions hierarchy. MGIMO is one of Russia’s most prestigious universities, with 8,600+ students and 1,200+ faculty.
Role
Product and UX/UI Designer, User Experience Researcher
Team
Project Manager, Frontend and Backend Developers
Timeline
4,5 months for UX, research and UI mockups
Project scope
- Market & audience research: analysis of academic digital library platforms and ESG knowledge resources across Russian and international markets.
- Competitive audit: review of 10 comparable platforms to identify navigation patterns, content architecture decisions, and access management approaches.
- User research: surveys with 30 participants across student, lecturer, and expert roles to define information needs, search behaviors, and pain points with the existing system.
- UX architecture: full information architecture — navigation structure, two-level rubricator system, catalog filtering logic, search scope, and personal account flows.
- UI design: complete visual system across desktop, tablet and mobile breakpoints.
- Figma component library: reusable components, auto-layouts, variants, and developer handoff documentation.
Key achievements
×500
Faster access to information and reference materials: from days of waiting for institutional approval down to an instant, role-based login*
~12 h
Estimated per-student time saved per semester (based on 40 minutes saved per search session across a standard 18-week academic term).
500+
Academic and analytical materials on ESG and sustainable development — structured, searchable, and accessible in one place.
~10 k
Potential users within MGIMO's academic community given structured digital access to ESG research materials for the first time.
0 → 3
User access roles designed and implemented from scratch (student, lecturer, expert), replacing a system where permissions had no hierarchy and obtaining access to materials could take days to a week.
* Based on project working group data.
Task
There was no unified system — just a collection of disconnected sources, informal permission chains, and no digital infrastructure for working with academic content at scale. Materials on ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) and sustainable development existed in five separate places simultaneously, with no common access logic and no way to search across them. Students depended on faculty to unlock content. Faculty had no tools to manage what they shared or track who had access. The institutional overhead wasn’t a side effect, it was the only system that existed.
My task was to design a platform that replaced all of that: a single structured resource with a logical rubricator, precise multi-parameter filtering, role-based access that removes the need for manual approval entirely, and personal tools that give each type of user continuity across sessions. The goal wasn’t just to digitize existing content, it was to make knowledge genuinely reachable, for the first time, without asking anyone’s permission.
Goals
- Replace five fragmented content sources with a single, structured digital platform.
- Design a two-level rubricator that organizes a broad, interdisciplinary subject domain into navigable categories.
- Build a filtering and search system that serves users with different levels of expertise and different information needs.
- Implement role-based access that removes the need for manual permission requests entirely.
- Create a personal account with subscription tools that give users continuity across sessions.
- Establish a responsive visual system that works consistently across all screen sizes.
Process highlights
Searching for the right academic material is rarely a simple task, especially when the subject domain spans multiple disciplines and the audience ranges from first-year students to senior researchers. Throughout this project, the central design question was: how do you make a large, complex body of knowledge feel navigable without oversimplifying it?
The highlights below reflect some key decisions where that tension was most deliberately resolved.
Filter parameters
Material type, topic, tag, language, expertise level, publication date, and placement date — all accessible in a single overlay without leaving the catalog.
Expertise level
Separating "basic" from "expert" materials was a direct outcome of user research: students and teachers approach the same topic at different depths.
Live result count
The filter panel shows the number of matching publications in real time: users see exactly what their query will return before applying it.
Rich metadata for confident decisions
Every publication displays author, source, dates, topic, material type, language, and expertise level.
Tags as cross-disciplinary connectors
Topic tags link each material to related fields and subjects. Clicking a tag launches a filtered catalog view.
Download and share
Every publication page includes a PDF download button and a sharing panel for passing the link to colleagues or students.
Two-level structure
Seven top-level categories with subcategories: each card shows how many materials are inside, so users judge relevance before clicking.
From category to content in 2 clicks
A rubric page surfaces subcategories, material counts, and related publications in one place: dive deeper or jump straight to the filtered catalog.
Like a single mechanism
Every rubric is connected to the filter system: browsing by topic and searching the catalog are the same action, just different entry points.
Forms designed for real humans
Registration, login, and password recovery were analyzed and rebuilt with contextual hints on every field — reducing errors and uncertainty at each step.
Password rules
Requirements are displayed directly below the field: users know what's expected before they make a mistake, not after submitting.
One form, three roles
Expertise level selection at registration replaced manual role assignment: the system knows who the user is from the very first interaction.
Expertise level badge
The user's role (student, lecturer or expert) is displayed on their profile and shapes the experience from login onward, replacing informal status with a clear identity in the system.
Subscription to topics
Users select rubrics they care about directly in their account: getting a personalised content feed instead of generic email updates. A first for this audience.
Account management
Profile, password change, and subscription live in one place with tab navigation: no separate settings pages, no buried menus.
Technical consistency
- All design layouts are created across desktop (1440px), tablet (1024px and 768px), and mobile (360px), with consistent handling of breakpoints, content reflow, and touch targets across all screen sizes.
- The necessary active states are defined and visualized across all interactive elements: navigation, filters, catalog cards, tags, search, account tabs, subscription checkboxes, and empty states.
- The project’s working files are structured and organized in Figma (components, auto-layouts, variants, color and typography tokens) and fully prepared for developer handoff and collaboration.
- The platform is live at esg-library.mgimo.ru, implemented under MGIMO’s Priority-2030 strategic development programme.
Working with Alex was genuinely easy and enjoyable. At the start, we had a huge amount of scattered, chaotic information. Alex managed to structure it all, turn it into something clear and user-friendly, and bring real order to the product. Now it looks like a proper system and works like an intuitive mechanism: the flows are simple, the screens feel modern and clean, and nothing gets in the way of the user. Great communication, always responsive, and we’re truly happy with the result.
Maxim Gorchakov,
Project Manager