We’re currently recruiting for a senior content designer who will lead our content operations function and play a key role in shaping our future service as we build a new content management system.

At a recent awayday, I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on services, what that means for how our team does its work and how it might have wider impact.

This week I presented to over 100 colleagues from across the University on our plans for the transformation of online provision for prospective students. This post summarises the key points, or you can review the slides and video of my presentation if you want the full detail.

We’ve spent the early part of 2022 working on a plan to replace the central University provision for prospective students. A big part of this offering is the degree finders. Join us for a talk about this planning work and what we envisage the next 3 years will bring.

A term I hear too often in meetings about digital content is “signposting”. In my view it’s a cop out and it’s incredibly damaging to the student experience. We need to focus on students’ task success instead.

Replacing the University’s Degree Finders has been long talked about. It’s long overdue. In this post I’ll explain where we’re up to, and why replacing is not a term I prefer to use.

We’re looking for two people with a passion for human-centred content design to join our team. If you’re up for solving big digital problems for prospective student, working in a multidisciplinary team this could be the opportunity for you.

I look back on what we learned by running six design sprints over the spring and summer of 2021, both in terms of shaping the research and design technique to suit our circumstances, and in terms of what this has meant for shaping the future provision for prospective students.

Our design sprints generated an amazing amount of ideas in a short period of time, and most importantly, feedback from students on which ideas were good ones. Our design sprint lead, Nicola Dobiecka, talks through our prototypes and what we learned.

Last week our Design Sprint Facilitator Nicola Dobiecka ran a session on experience mapping to share what we’ve learned about the prospective student decision making process. Session recording and access to the map are available to Edinburgh staff.