In summer 2022, we used a 5-second test to understand what caught a person’s attention and what they could remember after looking at a piece of content for a short time. In this post, I reflect on the lessons my team and I learned conducting this research as part of the fees payment project.

We’ve been using an analytics and feedback tool, Hotjar, on our beta pages of the new undergraduate degree profiles. The insight mirrors what we saw in earlier usability testing, so we’re implementing design changes to address issues.

Over the summer we undertook user research with prospective research students to better understand their experiences and help inform the design of our future web presence. We presented findings last week to the student recruitment and marketing community, and the slides and video are now available to staff.

On 13 December 2023, we hosted an update event on the progress our team has made in designing the new postgraduate taught page template for the new degree finder. This post gives a summary of the event, with access to the event slides and recording.

Earlier this year, we collaborated with admissions colleagues to design a new presentation for entry requirements in the undergraduate degree finder. In this post, I share the different iterations we designed and how testing with students informed our design decisions.

We’re running an online event on Wednesday 13 December to share our latest work on developing the new postgraduate taught (on-campus and online) programme page. You’ll have a chance to give feedback on our work and register for collaboration sessions with us to help us improve our designs.

We’re running an open invite event on Microsoft Teams to share what we learned through the user research conducted during the summer of 2023. Join us to better understand the experience of prospective postgraduate research students, with the majority focus on PhD.

I was invited on The Fourth Wall Content Podcast, a new podcast exploring user-centred case studies. I spoke about our team’s collaboration with the Student Immigration Service on improving the digital experience for student visa applicants.

Last week we launched a preview of what undergraduate degree profiles will look like when the new system goes live. We call this a beta.

While it’s been disappointing to push back our go live dates for our future state project, our developers have been making best use of the hiatus and we’ve achieved some things that will benefit us in the longer term.