Case Study
Sisu+ • 2026 — onwards
The Sisu we
deserve, finally.
Reimagining a Finnish university's student portal as a browser extension, a full replacement for the dreaded original, not a coat of paint.
Experience Sisu+↗ROLE
Solo design + build
TIMELINE
2 months
SURFACE
Chrome extension
USERS
30+ students
THE BRIEF
Sisu, but it respects your time.
Required, dreaded, unavoidable.
Every Finnish university student lives in Sisu: enrolments, study plans, degree progress. It's clunky, table-heavy, and stressful to navigate under deadline pressure. The goal wasn't to skin it. It was to replace the student-facing surface entirely with something calmer and more capable.
30+
Active Chrome users4
Surfaces rebuiltSolo. Research, API reverse engineering, product design, design system, and the full build.
2 months, nights and weekends, alongside studies and professional work.
THE APPROACH
A serious instrument for academic work. Dark enough to recede, structured enough to handle density, with a single earned green that lights up only when something real has happened.
HOW IT WAS BUILT
Four moves, one person.
01
Audit the original
Mapped every student-facing Sisu flow and where it broke down. Like the prerequisite puzzles, the page-hunting, the institutional gray.
02
Define the system
Built the Night Canvas palette, Fira pairing, and ring-shadow elevation before a single screen, so density never turned into noise.
03
Rebuild the surfaces
Dashboard, study timeline, registration, and structure. Each redesigned from scratch for the job, not dark-moded.
04
Ship and iterate
Released as a free Chrome extension, gathered feedback from real students, and tuned the calm-by-default motion.
OUTCOME
What changed.
30+
Students switched0
Trips back to OG Sisu100%
Open sourceReplace, don't decorate. Every screen should feel like it was designed from scratch for this job.
— design principle #1, from the system doc