13 / 19 · Travel paperwork without the chasing

My Documents

My Documents tells EF students which travel documents are due and lets them upload each one from desktop or phone. I designed it on the My EF brand framework, from first-visit coach marks to the accepted banner.

Role
Product designer
Client
EF Education First
Industry
Education
Year
2017
Work
UX design, UI design, Responsive web

Before an international trip with EF, every student has to hand in a set of documents: a passport copy, a signed liability waiver, a confirmation email, transfer details and more. My EF is the portal students already use for courses, trips and account settings.

Each student has a different list, each document has its own due date, and some get rejected and need a second attempt. Many students are on their phones rather than at a desk, and a missed document can hold up a trip.

What would let a student see at a glance what is still due, upload it from whatever device is at hand, and know straight away whether it was accepted?

I put everything on one page. Cards under To upload show each required document with its notification date, due date and a countdown. Rejected items turn coral and say when they were rejected. Accepted documents move to their own section, and a banner confirms the change. The detail view takes a drag-and-drop or phone upload, with recent uploads, reviewer comments and a short how-to video. A separate library holds documents students only need to download.

My role

Product designer. Designed the My Documents feature on the My EF brand framework: onboarding, the to-upload and accepted views, the upload detail page and the downloadable documents library, across desktop and mobile.

What made it hard

  • Many documents, many deadlines

    Each card had to show what it is, when it is due and how much time is left without becoming cluttered.

  • Rejection without frustration

    A rejected upload needed a clear reason and an obvious way to try again.

  • Desktop and phone

    Students upload scans on a laptop or photos straight from a phone, so both had to work equally well.

Questions we asked

  1. What does a student need to know first: what is missing, or what is due soonest?
  2. How do we tell someone their upload was rejected in a way that helps them fix it?
  3. Which documents need uploading, and which only need reading?
01

One page for what's due

Coach marks introduce the page on first visit. To upload cards carry notification and due dates with a countdown; rejected items are flagged in coral. Accepted documents sit below, and a green banner confirms when new ones are approved.

One page for what's due

A first-visit coach mark explains the To upload section before anything else.

02

Upload and feedback

The detail view takes files by drag and drop or from the phone. Recent uploads show as accepted, pending or rejected, with the reviewer's comment, and a short video explains how to upload.

The detail page runs from the drop zone through each upload's status to the reviewer's comment.

03

Other documents

A library holds what students only need to read or download: code of conduct, child protection policy, insurance information and similar.

Other documents
Other documents

Read-only documents share the card pattern but drop the deadlines.

04

On the phone

The same flows run on my.ef.com in a mobile browser, with To upload and Accepted as tabs and upload straight from the camera roll.

On the phone

Mobile-web states: to upload, upload and recently uploaded.

In motion

What I took away

  • Put a date on it. Due dates and countdowns turned a checklist into something students act on.
  • Make rejection useful. A rejected upload helps only if it says why and shows the next step.
  • Build on what exists. The My EF framework let a new feature feel like part of the portal from the start.
Product designer
Preetham Lawrence
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preetham.lawrence@icloud.com
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Design leader based in Zürich, Switzerland. Open to leadership roles and selected collaborations.

© 2026 Preetham LawrenceIndex