Privacy Policy
Overview
UGuide is an anonymous application. We do not ask you to create an account, and we do not collect personally identifiable information such as your name, email address, student ID, or U of U credentials. Everything described below is tied only to a randomly generated identifier in your browser's storage, not to you as a person.
Anonymous Session Identifier
The first time you visit UGuide, your browser generates a random UUID and stores it in localStorage under the key uguide_session_id. This identifier persists in your browser indefinitely and is used to keep your quiz results, saved majors, and saved careers connected across visits on the same device. It contains no information about who you are. If you clear your browser storage, switch browsers, or use a different device, a new identifier is generated and your previous activity will not be linked to it.
What We Store on Your Device
UGuide uses your browser's localStorage to remember your progress so you can return to your session without signing in. This includes:
- Your anonymous session identifier
- Your quiz answers and the recommendations they produced
- Your saved majors and saved careers
- An AI-generated personality summary derived from your quiz answers
- Cached major and career pages, to speed up repeat visits
A small cookie called hasQuizData is also set for up to seven days so the home page can route you to the right starting point on a return visit.
What We Store on Our Servers
To support research into how students explore majors and careers, and to improve the application over time, UGuide records the following in a database hosted on Supabase, keyed to your anonymous session identifier:
- Quiz results: the archetype, interests, personality traits, values, career rankings, long-term goals, and free-text “anything else” response from the quiz, along with the underlying score values
- Saved majors: the current list of majors you have added to your Top Picks
We do not store your name, email, IP address, or any other identifier that could be linked back to you as a person. These records exist only as a row tagged with the random UUID described above.
AI Interactions
Several parts of UGuide use AI: the quiz recommendations, the AI exploration page, the page-aware chat widget, the “add by name” search on Top Picks, the comparison tool, and AI-generated narrative on major and career pages. When you send a message or ask for AI-generated content, the request is forwarded to third-party AI providers (currently routed through OpenRouter) to produce a response. These conversations are processed to generate the response you see and are not used to train public AI models. The contents of your AI conversations are not currently stored in our database alongside your session.
Third-Party Services
UGuide loads two third-party services on every page to help us understand how the application is being used in aggregate:
- Microsoft Clarity records session replays, heatmaps, and clicks, scrolls, and other interactions on the pages you visit. Clarity sets its own cookies (
_clck,_clsk) and is governed by the Microsoft Privacy Statement. - Vercel Web Analytics records aggregate page views and visitor counts for the team that hosts and maintains the application. It is governed by the Vercel Privacy Policy.
Both services collect behavioral data, not personal information. We do not sell, trade, or rent any data collected through UGuide.
How We Use This Information
The data we collect is used to (1) deliver the application and remember your progress, (2) understand which features students find useful, (3) inform improvements to the quiz, AI recommendations, and content, and (4) support academic research about how students navigate major and career exploration. Any research output is reported in aggregate and does not identify individual sessions.
Your Choices
Because UGuide is anonymous, we cannot look up your data on request — there is no account to look up. You can, however, clear everything tied to your browser at any time by clearing your browser's site data for this domain. Doing so will remove your session identifier, your quiz results, your saved majors and careers, and the cookies set by Microsoft Clarity. Your next visit will start fresh with a new anonymous identifier.
University Policy
As an official University of Utah application, UGuide operates in accordance with the University of Utah Privacy Policy.
Contact Us
If you have questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, please contact the Academic Innovation + Intelligence Lab at uguide@utah.edu.