What's New
Stay up to date with the latest features, improvements, and fixes on uni.xyz.
July 2026
Video Upload Guidance
Course builders now get a nudge to upload video directly instead of embedding YouTube or Vimeo links, and are notified when an uploaded video is automatically downscaled for smoother playback.
Organization Courses Tab
Organizations now have a dedicated Courses tab showing their published courses to the public, with org managers able to collaboratively manage and publish courses alongside the original author.
Public Notes with Video Seekbar Markers
Students can now mark their timestamped lesson notes as public, showing them as clickable markers on the video seekbar so classmates can jump straight to the moment being discussed.
Better Video Viewing in Project Galleries
Videos in project galleries now show up properly in the lightbox instead of being skipped, cinema mode actually works, grid thumbnails fill their tile, and HLS quality switching is more reliable.
Fixed Sideways & Rejected Portrait Videos
Phone videos shot in portrait no longer play back sideways, and vertical clips are downscaled instead of being rejected outright — so your video uploads look right the first time.
Upload Video Directly to Your Project
You can now add video to your project media straight from the Builder — hit "Add Video", pick a file, and watch a real upload progress bar while it processes. We'll email you when it's ready to play.
Bug Fixes: Project Videos, Tag Pages & Player Glitches
Fixed videos showing as broken image tiles in the project builder, resolved a timeout on project tag listing pages, and squashed several video player glitches (fullscreen errors, blank slides, and a memory leak during playback).
Video Support in Project Galleries
Creators can now add videos alongside images in their project galleries, and viewers can watch them directly in the gallery lightbox — no more static thumbnails standing in for motion work.
Timestamped Lesson Notes
Take personal notes while watching a course video and jump straight back to that exact moment later — your notes are private and tied to the timestamp where you wrote them.
Smarter Lesson Player: Resume, Shortcuts & Autoplay
The course lesson player now resumes right where you left off, supports keyboard shortcuts (space/k to play, arrows to seek, f for fullscreen, m to mute), and shows an autoplay countdown to the next lesson. A new course sidebar also makes it easier to jump between lessons.
Lesson Discussions (Q&A)
Every course lesson now has its own discussion thread, so students can ask questions and get answers right where the content is, without leaving the learn page.
Lesson Resources & Downloads
Instructors can now attach downloadable files to any course lesson, and students can grab them straight from the lesson page — handy for slides, templates, and supplementary reading.
Rate and Review Courses
Students can now rate and leave reviews on courses they have taken, helping others choose the right course.
Bookmark & Share Courses
You can now bookmark courses to save them for later and share them directly from the course page.
New Learn Page with a Redesigned Video Player
The course learning experience has a new full-bleed video player with cinema mode, speed and quality settings, plus a curriculum sidebar that tracks your progress and auto-advances between lessons.
Institutional Course Assignments
Organizations with institutional access can now assign courses directly to students and professors using shared credits, instead of requiring individual purchases.
Courses Get a Redesigned Catalog & Detail Pages
Browsing courses is easier with a new searchable, sortable catalog, and each course now has a richer detail page with curriculum preview, instructor bio, FAQs, and related courses.
Join a Course Cohort with a Code
Learners can now join a specific class cohort using an invite code, keeping assignments, due dates, and peer review grouped within their own class roster.
Course Assignments, Grading & Peer Review
Instructors can now assign graded work with rubrics, review submissions from a dedicated gradebook, and enable double-blind peer review — giving learners richer feedback beyond quizzes and exams.
Buy Courses Directly on uni.xyz
Courses can now be purchased individually with a single click — creators set a price, learners buy and get instant access, no separate membership required.
Team Members Can Now Access Shared Award Closures
On winning entries submitted by a team, co-authors were previously locked out of the award closure form. Any accepted team member can now view and submit the closure, not just the entry owner.
Fixed Duplicate Draft Deadline Reminder Emails
Some participants with multiple draft entries in the same competition were getting several identical deadline reminder emails within seconds of each other. Reminders are now sent once per deadline, not once per entry.
UNIfy Chat Assistant Now Available to Everyone
The UNIfy AI chat overlay, previously available to staff only, is now rolled out to all users platform-wide.
Reminder to Submit Your Competition Entry
If you register for a competition but haven't uploaded a project, publication, or blog yet, we'll now send a one-time reminder about a day later (as long as submissions are still open) so you don't miss the deadline.
See Your Competition Entry Status at a Glance
Competition pages now show a status strip letting you know at a glance whether you're registered or have already submitted your entry, and the entry call-to-action is hidden once the deadline has passed.
Jury Panel Links Now Open the Right Competition
Fixed jury panel links that were sending jurors to a generic dashboard instead of the specific competition, and corrected entry counts so they match what the panel actually shows.
Publication Editor No Longer Freezes After Step 1
Fixed an issue where the Next button in the publication editor could get stuck after completing the first step, blocking authors from continuing.
New Email Notifications: Weekly Bookmark Digest & Milestones
You can now get a weekly digest of your saved bookmarks, plus email alerts when your projects and publications hit like milestones, when your organization membership changes, or when a comment you posted needs moderation attention.
June 2026
UI Updates Now Respond Instantly Across the Platform
Fixed a rendering issue where the interface could appear stale — for example, the dark/light theme not applying immediately, or journal editor buttons (Next, Publish) staying grayed out even after conditions were met. All apps now refresh in real time when your session or page state changes.
Welcome Back Email Series for Returning Members
If you have been away from uni.xyz and log back in, you will now receive a short three-email welcome-back series over your first week — helping you rediscover competitions, disciplines, and projects tailored to your interests.
Smart Activity Notifications for Competitions & Projects
You now receive timely email notifications across every stage of your competition and project journey — from voting opening and jury deadlines to draft entry reminders, project like milestones, comment digests, team invite follow-ups, and a daily network activity digest. All emails include one-click unsubscribe support.
Clearer Deadline Labels on Competition Cards
Competition cards now consistently show "starts" and "ends" suffixes on all phase deadlines — including Jury, Voting, Registration, and Submission phases — even when custom phase names are used. This makes it easier to quickly tell at a glance whether a deadline is upcoming or expiring.
Smoother Phone Verification with "Verify Later" Option
Adding a phone number to your profile is now more flexible — you can tap "Verify later" to save the number as pending and complete verification at any time. A Pending badge clearly indicates unverified numbers, and OTP codes are now valid for 24 hours with a 3-minute resend cooldown.
Competition Deadline Reminders & One-Click Sharing
Entry owners and team members now receive timely email reminders as voting and submission deadlines approach (30 days, 7 days, 48 hours, and 12 hours out), plus in-app bell notifications and push alerts. When clicking "Share your project" in the reminder email, a dedicated share modal opens instantly with links to X, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Facebook — and a copyable referral link.
Automated Award Closure Reminders and Status Updates
Winners now receive automatic reminder emails if their award closure is pending, with step-by-step status notifications covering submission confirmation, verification, rejection, and disbursement — so you always know where your award stands.
May 2026
Smarter Similar Projects Recommendations
The "Similar Projects" section on every project page now uses AI-powered semantic search to surface genuinely relevant work — matching by meaning and creative direction, not just tags or recency. Recommendations now show up to 8 projects and link out to broader discovery.
Large Image Uploads Now Reliable
Very large images (over 16 megapixels) now upload and display correctly. Previously, extremely high-resolution photos could silently fail during processing — this is now fixed.
Collaborators Team Protected From Accidental Deletion
The primary Collaborators team on your project can no longer be accidentally deleted. The delete button is hidden for collaborators teams, and error messages now clearly explain why a team or member cannot be removed.
Your Competition Entries Now Load Completely
Your profile dashboard previously only showed up to 20 competition entries, cutting off older registrations. It now loads all your entries across every competition, and they appear newest-first so your recent work is always at the top.
Membership Entry Quota Fixes
Fixed several issues with how competition entries are counted against your membership quota: entry counts now reset correctly when you renew your membership, free competition categories no longer consume your entry quota, and Senior membership holders now receive their included competition entry.
Competition Entry Count Display Fixed
Fixed an inconsistency where the entry count shown on the awards and fees page could differ from the pricing details. Competition entry counts now display consistently across all pages.
Award Closure Email Notifications & Improved Payout Flow
Winners now receive email notifications when an award closure is initiated. The payout page has been updated with clearer status indicators, making it easier to track where you are in the payment process.
Project Editor: Media Deletion Fixed
Fixed a bug in the project editor where the delete confirmation dialog buttons were unresponsive, preventing creators from removing media files. The delete flow now works correctly.
Cleaner Image Captions in Articles
Image captions in articles and journals no longer show raw HTML markup. Captions now render as clean, readable text.
Community Feed in Journals
A new Community feed is now available in the Journals sidebar. Browse all posts from the broader uni.xyz community in one place, separate from your curated Following feed.
Improved Government & Public Sector Landing Page
The Government & Public Sector industry page now features richer visuals with layered solution cards and per-industry hero images, making it easier for public-sector organisations to understand how UNI supports procurement-compliant design competitions.
April 2026
Report Dialog Fixed for Project Cards
The report dialog now opens correctly centered on screen with a full-viewport backdrop, fixing an issue where it appeared misaligned or left the navbar visible behind it.
Publish Projects Without Limits
You can now publish as many projects as you like, regardless of your membership plan. Previously, free accounts were capped at 5 published projects.
Testimonials Now Linked from Home Page
The home page testimonial carousel now has a "View all testimonials" button that takes you to the full Testimonials Wall. Testimonial photos also load faster and transition more smoothly between slides.
Testimonials Wall Now Shuffles on Every Visit
The testimonials wall now shows quotes in a fresh, randomized order each time you visit — giving every community voice a chance to be seen first.