Anthology / Blackboard Meal Planner

Anthology needed to solve a critical problem at the University of North Carolina Wilmington: its student meal-planning application was incomplete and unreliable, creating a significant administrative burden for the university. Originally built by a staff member who never completed the application, the system frequently failed outright and, more seriously, could incorrectly calculate student charges—resulting in both overcharges and undercharges that required staff intervention to resolve. With the August student move-in deadline approaching, there was little room for an extended discovery or development cycle.

I traveled to campus and spent four intensive hours with the university team learning their processes, documenting requirements, identifying failure points, and understanding the needs of the students and administrators who relied on the system. At the same time, Anthology saw an opportunity beyond solving UNCW's immediate problem: the new solution needed to establish a reusable, configurable strategy that could ultimately be offered to universities across its customer base as a new business line.

In just two months, I transformed a problematic, unreliable application into a production-ready meal-planning solution designed around the real operational needs of UNCW while establishing a foundation Anthology could reuse across other universities. I designed the complete set of forms and workflows, worked directly with the university and Anthology teams to architect the solution, and led the development, testing, and deployment process from concept through launch.

The application was ready for students by the August move-in period—turning an administrative nightmare and looming deadline into a successful product launch. More importantly, the project demonstrated how focused discovery, decisive UX strategy, and disciplined execution can turn a one-off institutional problem into a scalable product opportunity with the potential to become an entirely new business line for Anthology.