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.

In Sprint 6 we explored how to make it easier for applicants to locate information on scholarships and funding they may be eligible for.

In Design Sprint 5, we explored a way to provide international entry requirements that applied specifically to an individual’s circumstances.

In Sprint 4 we explored making entry requirements as clear as possible for UK undergraduates, with particular focus on the experience of widening participation candidates.

In sprint 3 we generated an idea to test around helping students to understand the potential costs associated with studying for a degree, and how these can change based on decisions they make.

Design Sprint 2 considered the value and complexity in empowering applicants to customise the information being presented to them.

In Sprint 1 we wanted to evaluate the usefulness of a search and filter concept on the University website.

Our design sprint challenge was to identify how we might make all funding opportunities findable and comprehensible to prospective students. We designed and tested a prototype concept to help us gauge how useful students find a new scholarship search facility and the presentation of the funding information.

Join us on Wednesday 18 August at 10am to watch prospective postgraduates try out a design we’ve prototyped to make it easier to find scholarships and funding available to them to study at Edinburgh.