We recently hosted an update event on the team’s research and design work over the summer and autumn of 2023 on the new programme page template for taught postgraduate programmes. This post summarises the event, with access to the event slides and recording for University of Edinburgh staff.

Slides and recording

• Presentation slides (PowerPoint file – University staff login required)
• Video of the postgraduate research applicant user research playback event (University staff login required)

Event summary

At the event, I shared:

• A recap of the starting point to Degree Finder Transformation – the Design Sprints completed in 2021, which fed into the PGT user research
• Insight from the user research work done by the UX Team following the Design Sprints, which ran in parallel with the Content Design Team’s content audit and comparator institution reviews
• Insight from the subsequent collaboration between the UX and Content Design teams to design a new Programme Page content template for taught postgraduate degrees

A recap of the starting point to the Degree Finder Transformation: Design Sprints

In the spring and summer of 2021, we conducted 6 ‘design sprints’; these were collaborative design and research workshops with staff, and each sprint focused on a particular topic.

Design sprint recap blog – Neil Allison provides a look back at how we ran the design sprints

Each design sprint was based on a priority topic from the Top Tasks Survey run by User Vision in 2018, which shows prospective student priorities when visiting the University website. We also drew on staff experience and analytics.

For each sprint, we collated existing knowledge from past usability testing, analytics, and enquiry management, interviewed stakeholders, and collaboratively designed new ideas to improve student experiences with website provision. Then, we conducted user research sessions with new and prospective students to explore the viability of these concepts. The sprint topics were:

• Sprint 1 Search filter (focusing on postgraduate students)
• Sprint 2 Customisation (focusing on undergraduate students)
• Sprint 3 Tuition Fees (focusing on postgraduate students)
• Sprint 4 Entry requirements (focusing on undergraduate widening participation students)
• Sprint 5 Entry requirements (focusing on international undergraduates)
• Sprint 6 Scholarships and funding (focusing on taught postgraduate students)

In the end, we had a picture of the current state of our degree finder and our desired future state.

The current state of the Degree Finder

The current degree finder and supporting web content presents significant usability issues, which leads to a poor experience for prospective students.

• Priority information is hard to find, and sometimes journeys are circular.
• Staff report fielding enquiries for online information which people didn’t find.
• Many ineligible applications could be reduced with a website that better supports self-service for relevant audience groups.

We learned that we didn’t understand our audience’s needs and their goals in their context. This is essential for providing web-based information that is useful, relevant to the website user, and easy to use.

The template for presenting a degree programme is somewhat restrictive; it doesn’t easily support attraction and engagement content. Our presentation style is out of date and out of step with that of comparator institutions.

Our desired future state

• A streamlined experience for prospective taught postgraduates choosing and applying for a programme
• Fewer ineligible applications
• Fewer unnecessary enquiries
• A programme page template that incorporates multi-media
• A more streamlined publishing experience

We didn’t know enough about the prospective taught postgraduate user journey

The user journey is a high-level map of the steps a particular target-audience group takes when using a product or service and spans multiple channels. It’s a valuable tool to align our services to and increases the likelihood of providing the right person with the correct information at the right time.

People using a website or service often behave differently to our expectations, which means that although it’s a valuable tool to have an internal service map, it can be out of step with what users are doing if it hasn’t been checked out with some user research. A user journey based on user research and insight into what people do can help avoid a mismatch between their expectations and needs and our service provision.

The design sprints showed that most of our knowledge of student behaviour was from an internal perspective. Our website analytics data was helpful in showing us what people did but not why they did it, and in the Top Tasks survey, which User Vision conducted in 2018, only 25% of the responses were from taught postgraduate students.

To fill the gaps in our knowledge, we planned a round of user research to understand the steps prospective postgraduates went through in choosing a degree programme.

User research into the prospective postgraduate student journey

We conducted 12 one-to-one research sessions with a range of current and prospective taught postgraduate students.

• 7 international students
  • 2 studying online,
  • 5 studying on campus.
• 5 domestic students
  • 3 Rest of UK
  • 2 Scottish

What we learned about the prospective taught postgraduate student journey

An ever-present hub of resources is available to all prospective students

Prospective students encounter several information sources when finding and applying for a programme. These are all available to them from the start of their journey. They include organisations, services, and relationships with people.

People in proximity to the prospective student

• Peers
• Family
• Friends
• Lecturers
• International Agents

Web-based information – self-service oriented

• 3^rd party websites, for example, Findamasters.com and ranking sites
• University websites
• Social media

People associated with a university

• Current students
• Alumni
• University staff

Officially organised events

• Careers fairs
• Open days
• Campus tours

Most prospective taught postgraduate students are more informed about the general steps to find a degree than prospective undergraduates

If they have already been through the process of finding and applying for an undergraduate degree, they assume the process is the same. This means they know most of the decisions they must make from the start and understand what resources are available to help them. However, it does mean they can be unaware that universities might have different processes at postgraduate level.

The first step participants in the user research took was to rule out places they didn’t want to study before looking for places that offered the subject they wanted to study.

Prospective taught postgraduate students start their research with a web search

Most of our research participants began their journey with a web search; a couple had been recommended a particular programme at a specific university. Those starting online began with a Google search for the subject they want to study or used an aggregator site such as Findamasters.com or QS ranking. Some went straight to the website of their desired university.

Most programme research is conducted online

The participants focused on web-based material and spent most of their time reading programme content in-depth.

Some deliberately looked for open days to get answers to specific questions, and some attended after seeing the open day event advertised on the University website while reading the programme page.

Some deliberately looked for people with 1^st-hand experience of the programme to speak to because they wanted to know something specific, for example, ‘What was it like for someone from my country to study this programme / at this university?’ and ‘Is the content delivery on this programme as stated and how does it compare with a comparator programme/university?’

Entry requirements are checked first, then costs

The first step our participants took was to check their eligibility to apply for the programme and to look at the cost of study, whether they would be paying for it themselves or considering applying for funding. Participants who knew they needed to apply for funding to afford their studies did not always check the tuition fees.

Programme content is the main focus when choosing a programme

Participants made their final decision based on an in-depth analysis of the programme content & delivery. They were particularly interested in the details of what they would study and that it led in the direction they wanted to progress.

Additional factors they considered were whether they could fit the study commitment in alongside other commitments & part-time work and what it’s like to study this programme at this university.

For some, securing funding through a scholarship or grant was the deciding factor in taking up a place and many needed to secure a spot on a programme to be eligible to apply for funding.

Accounts of current students’ first-hand experiences are helpful but not a ‘glossy brochure’ version

Participants used other people’s experiences on a programme to check whether it delivered what they wanted. For one participant, it was to check that “it wasn’t just riding on the University’s reputation”.

They looked for views from students in other locations than the University website as these were seen as potentially more honest, and this is when they sometimes used social media.

Applying research insight to the design of the taught postgraduate programme page

In addition to providing us with the steps in the taught postgraduate user journey, our research identified the relevant content that prospective taught postgraduates needed on the programme page.

The content design team used what we learned to create version 1 of a content model for the taught postgraduate programme entry into the degree finder, identifying where content from a central or school website could be integrated into the programme page instead.

The UX team used the insight to create a draft presentation (a wireframe) for a new programme page, considering new interactions and ways of presenting some page elements.

The UX and Content Design teams then worked collaboratively on how best to present the content on the programme page.

Determining how best to present the content on the programme page

We intended to use the same presentation on the postgraduate taught programme page as that created for the new undergraduate programme page. Related content is grouped, given a sub-heading and presented in a central column. A secondary menu of the content sections is located on the right-hand side and moves down the page as you scroll.

We knew the main presentation format we would use, but we needed to identify the following:

• Which related content groups to present
• What to call those groups
• How to visually style the content to support understanding

These are fundamental tasks in creating an Information Architecture (IA). IA helps to connect people to the content they are looking for, which might be in text, images, videos, documents, or people and conversations, by dealing with things like hierarchy, labelling, navigation and searching.

To create our new postgraduate taught programme page IA, we need to combine the user research done by the UX team and the content audit and content model work done by the content design team. Once we’d done this, we had a draft IA.

We needed to test the IA we had created because there will always be more than one way to group a set of content, and staff grouping might differ from students because they are in a different context and have different goals.

First, we reviewed our draft IA with staff in several collaborative workshops to refine it. The next step was to test our IA with prospective students. To do this, we used a research technique called card sorting to learn how prospective students group content and understand terminology.

‘Card sorting’ with prospective taught postgraduates to test the IA

Card sorting is as it sounds – you write your content items onto cards and ask people to sort the items they think are related into groups. You can leave the groups to the participant to create (an ‘open’ card sort), provide the groups and titles and not allow participants to alter them (a ‘closed’ card sort), or a hybrid version where you provide groups but also allow people to create their own.

We did a Hybrid Card Sort to see if participants placed items into the same groups as us and each other.

Read about the different types of card sorting on the Optimal Sort website.

We used an online IA tool called Optimal Sort because it provided one place for all participants’ tasks, easy drag-and-drop functionality for sorting the cards and useful data views for analysis.

We used the draft content model to create 80 content ‘cards’ and provided 9 pre-determined groups.

Running a moderated card sort

Usually, card sorting sessions are not moderated – participants are presented with the cards; they sort them and submit their answers – but no facilitator asks them to explain their choices. This is because card sorting is often done towards the end of creating an IA and is used to check it out at scale with a high volume of respondents.

We chose a moderated session because we were earlier in the process of creating our IA and wanted to have insight into participants’ grouping decisions to help us make design decisions.

We conducted 11 moderated card-sort research sessions

Each 1-2-1 session contained the card sorting activity and a semi-structured interview. There were:

• 6 International students
  • 2 full-time on campus
  • 4 part-time online
• 5 domestic, 4 rUK, 1 Scottish

The results: overall agreement with our Information Architecture

Our content groups and their outcome

1. Applying – Majority agreement
2. Career paths and further study – Majority agreement
3. Fees and funding – Discussion re: Label; Accommodation costs
4. Life at Edinburgh – Majority agreement
5. Online learning – Majority agreement
6. Programme Overview – Uncertainty – resolved
7. Programme Details – Uncertainty – resolved
8. What next? – Doesn’t work (mistook for ‘After you apply’)
9. Entry Requirements – Majority agreement

We also learned of some content which was not completely understood:

• ‘Study mode’ was not universally understood independently. We need to include it in future usability testing to check if it’s understood when presented in the context of the programme page.
• Most participants understood that a deposit meant part of a tuition fee payment but asked if it was in addition to fees or offset against them and if it was refundable.
• Participants understood the term ‘School-specific funding’ but wanted a precise description of the process for getting the funding and easier ways to find available funding.

Some content was quite clear yet indicated the need for further work:

• International Entry Requirements are most useful in their overseas format. When presented in the UK format, there is a risk of students using incorrect information, as they tend to find their country’s equivalent through a web search.
• Participants saw practical experience and work experience as different items. If they were required for entry, participants grouped them with Entry Requirements, but not if they were optional. If either would strengthen an application but are not a requirement, then some work might be needed to determine the most effective placement.
• We couldn’t reach a conclusion on the best placement for ‘Accommodation costs’ – half the participants placed it in ‘Fees and funding’ and the other half ‘Life at Edinburgh’. We need to do further analysis on this.
• The potential for a ‘Living costs’ section was noted, which was also explored in the Design Sprint on Tuition Fees and could be explored further depending on relative priorities.

Further insight into the student journey from the hybrid card sorting session

During the card-sorting sessions, we asked some higher-level questions about prospective students’ behaviour and the reasons behind it.

Participants decided on part-time study early

Four of our participants were studying part-time, and 3 of them intended to study part-time from the outset, either because they needed to stay in work financially or enjoyed their job and did not want to stop it. Three participants are not enough to form a view that covers the whole audience group; we can supplement this in future activities.

Prospective taught postgraduates need to see study time commitment and career information

Prospective taught postgraduates need to see a detailed breakdown of contact hours to plan part-time work around study. Part-time students need this breakdown to assess the viability of study alongside work & life commitments. Showing this as a sample timetable might be helpful, which is something to take into future usability testing.

Showing career opportunities helps people determine if a programme will take them in the direction they’ve decided to head.

Prospective taught postgraduates want to know what it’s like to study here

Participants expected ‘What Our Students Say’ to include:

• Commentary from students on how they got on with the course
• Study demands
• Workload
• The experience in general

They actively looked for ‘true’ student experiences but did not look for them on the University website. As we saw with prospective undergraduate students, they assume the website will show a purely positive view.

For content conveying ‘what it’s like to do this course’ or ‘what it’s like to study here,’ it might be more beneficial to direct people to conversations with students and alumni on UniBuddy.

Further strategic work would be helpful around the use of different media for prospective students

Creating videos is resource-intensive, so tracking engagement with and the impact of video content is needed to see their effects. When creating and presenting videos, it’s important to identify the purpose the video serves, for example:

• Attraction and engagement,
• Conveying the environment, a tour of the facilities,
• What it’s like to study this programme / here,

We saw evidence that positive videos attract and encourage application from the user research into the prospective research student experience. Further research may be valuable in determining the optimal placement for these.

Prospective taught postgraduates expect information on the post-application period

Applicants were anxious about not receiving any communication post-application. They were unsure if it was normal or whether they should get in touch. We found similar experiences in communicating the gathered field process during the design sprints.

Generally, applicants expected to see a timeline of what will happen, when they can expect to hear from the University, and any tasks they need to complete, including specifics for international students.

People commented positively about the information received after the offer was made.

In future usability testing, we could test standard text indicating how long to expect to wait before hearing from the University or an indication that it is normal not to hear anything until a decision is made on an application.

Participants expected ‘online-specific’ information

All our research participants expected to find information about hardware requirements (how powerful a machine is required). Most expected to find information about how strong an internet connection they require. Some expected to find information about the software they need to apply online. They all grouped these items in the ‘Online learning’ category.

We wanted to learn about their expectations regarding the availability of the careers service; however, none of the participants had specifically looked for this. This might indicate low need at this journey stage, but we can’t say if that only applies to online students.

Read more

Following this user research work we built an interactive prototype for the taught postgraduate programme page and conducted a round of usability testing. This will start the process of iterative design and development for the taught postgraduate BETA programme page. We will present and blog more about what we learn as we iterate and develop the postgraduate taught programme page content template.

Developing new provision for prospective postgraduate taught programme students – more blog posts

We regularly write about what we’re doing and what we’re learning in the course of this project.

Prospective students future state web project – read more

Improving website provision for taught postgraduate students user research playback (event summary) / Future student online experiences by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0