Announcements

Happy New Year. Just got back from vacation and resumed work on improving the site.

**What's New:**

• **Region Pages Mobile Optimization**: The Australia and New Zealand region pages are now ultra-compact for mobile. Everything you see on desktop is now miniaturized to fit perfectly on your phone - 3-column grids, tiny university cards, the whole package. It's dense but readable.

• **About Page Vision Update**: Rewrote "The Vision" section to better explain why RateMyUnits is different. Focused on our 12 comprehensive rating components and the fact that we review units, not lecturers. This distinction matters for understanding your actual study experience.

• **Button & Text Centering**: Fixed a bunch of small alignment issues on the region pages. All those "View Units" and "Suggest a University" buttons now have properly centered text.

Uni 2026 starts soon and we will begin a marketing push very soon. Ads have now launched but is fully managed by google adsense (crawler bot placement) as of now. Will plan better ad placement and restrict the amount of them soon. Our main aim now is to increase the natural traffic, SEO and the amount of reviews on the site.

Comprehensive mobile optimization across the entire site is now complete. All pages have been refined for mobile devices with consistent sizing, improved layouts, and better touch interactions on any screen size.

I've just deployed the largest update to RateMyUnits yet. This isn't just a facelift; it's a complete revamp of the platform's core.

**Global Search & Navigation:**

Finally added a powerful global search bar. You can now search for both Units and Universities instantly. I've also added visual themes for each university (Orange for USYD, Gold for UNSW, Blue for UoA) to make navigation intuitive.

**Mobile Experience:**

The site is now semi-optimized for mobile. I've rebuilt the header, footer, and unit cards to work better on your phone, but there are still a lot of errors and edge cases I'm working through. Bear with me!

**Review Quality:**

I've updated the display logic to filter out "empty" reviews. You'll now only see reviews that actually have text or tips, keeping the feed high-quality and helpful.

**Under the Hood:**

Massive database optimization, security patches, and better analytics. I also wrote about 5 new documentation guides to help keep development moving fast.

**Long Term Plans:**

Looking ahead, I'm planning for full mobile integration and potentially an account system to make managing your reviews easier.

This sets the stage for the final push before the holidays. Enjoy the new look!

The University of Auckland is now fully integrated into RateMyUnits with 147+ units across all major faculties!

**Coverage:**

• Engineering (48 units): Mechanical, Electrical, Civil, Computer Systems, Software, Mechatronics

• Business (36 units): Accounting, Economics, Marketing, Finance, Information Systems

• Science (31 units): Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Chemistry

• Arts & Education (22 units): English, History, Philosophy, Media, Communication

• Law (10 units): Criminal, Torts, Contract, Property, Equity, Evidence

Complete with 7 faculties, 107 majors/subjects, and full search integration. All unit pages are live and ready for reviews!

Comprehensive platform update addressing critical UI/UX improvements, backend integrations, and infrastructure enhancements.

**Frontend Improvements:**

• **Dynamic Background System**: Implemented rotating background images across all pages with optimized performance and smooth transitions

• **Navigation Enhancement**: Refined "Show More/Less/All Units" button logic with improved state management and user control

• **Review Voting System**: Deployed helpful/unhelpful voting mechanism to surface high-quality reviews and improve content curation

• **Loading States**: Integrated loading animations throughout the platform for better user feedback during data operations

• **Typography Refinement**: Removed gradient text from review headings and optimized readability across all components

• **Bug Resolution**: Fixed scroll behavior inconsistencies, navigation issues, and various UI edge cases

• **Consistent Design Language**: Applied unified background system to contact page and other auxiliary pages

**Backend & Analytics:**

• **Umami Analytics Integration**: Deployed privacy-focused analytics system for tracking user engagement and site performance

• **Database Schema Optimization**: Finalized review data structure and voting system architecture in preparation for SUPABASE connection

• **Performance Monitoring**: Implemented tracking for page load times and user interaction patterns

These updates represent significant progress toward platform stability and production readiness. Further backend integration and performance optimization ongoing.

I just finished final exams so I finally have time to fully work on the site.

Shell and core of the site is done, SUPABASE not yet connected as I want to make sure of the data structure before beginning to start allowing reviews, but final fixes and deploys should be done soon.

Leaving for holiday on 18/12/2025 - before then:

• Final bug fixes and performance optimizations

• Backend integration completion

• Review moderation system finalization

• Additional UI/UX refinements

Also got a bunch of friends to commit to being marketing fodder for me.

To address confusion on the workings of the site, two major information resources have been added to the platform. The comprehensive FAQ section addresses common questions about review submission, moderation policies, and platform functionality. A dedicated "How We Score" page provides detailed explanations of the 12-category rating system: six Academic categories and six Student Experience categories. For now, these categories will stay, I believe they encompass most of the things that students need to know (can rate on) for a unit of study.

Both resources are accessible via the footer navigation (where the announcement page is found).

A comprehensive community guideline has been implemented to maintain review quality and platform integrity. The guideline establishes clear standards for constructive, respectful, and honest feedback while explicitly prohibiting personal attacks, spam, and discriminatory content.

All reviewers must now acknowledge these guidelines via a mandatory checkbox before submission. This requirement complements the existing moderation process, ensuring all published reviews meet established quality standards.

All reviews are (as of now) manually reviewed, thus reviews against the guidelines will be rejected.

Also note that as of now, the backend is not yet connected, so all this is for future planning 🙂

Because the demand of Units are not very easily calculable, a "Suggest a Unit" option has been added to the contact form to facilitate platform expansion. Students can submit requests for missing units that they want to review, or in the future, read reviews on. All submissions are reviewed and prioritized based on demand. The contact form continues to handle bug reports, feature requests, and general inquiries as part of the platform's community-driven development approach.

The RateMyUnits Beta v0.9 has launched with support for three universities (Uni Sydney, Uni Auckland, and UNSW) covering approximately 60+ units. Right now, the site will only incorporate these three universities (as I have friends at them, and I attend one of them)

The current stage of the beta release is mostly focused on UI and UX development and feedback, because the backend (SUPABASE) is not yet connected (although it is almost done).

Looking for feedback on the 'Rating Components' (the 12 components of rating for each unit). Just making sure that these 12 components encompass most if not all there is to rate a unit on. Also feedback on the review process (it should be optimized and satisfying such that people are motivated to leave reviews, and not make it feel like a chore).

Please leave feedback through the contact us form!!!