Over the last year, we launched our revamped undergraduate and postgraduate degree finders, complete with a host of new, user-friendly features in the content management system (CMS) for editors and administrators to utilise in the backend. One of these features is a built-in comments function, which allows users to interact with one another by leaving […]

The Prospective Student Web Team are delivering all the sessions in this month’s Marcomms Forum. Join us to learn about usability testing the new postgraduate degree finder, editorial advice to improve postgraduate degree profiles, and how to use our student journey maps.

We recently reviewed the new postgraduate study website with 17 students, using a summative usability testing approach to produce a performance scorecard. While there were aspects of the site that performed well, we identified areas that need further improvement.

Following the launch of the Undergraduate Study website and Degree Finder in March, we’ve released 11 updates that have steadily improved editorial workflows, collaboration and performance. Alongside usability and design refinements, these enhancements have made the service more efficient for editors and more effective for prospective students.

In preparation for the retirement of the Virtual Visit platform in October 2025, the team ran a project to understand how prospective students orientate themselves with Edinburgh and the campus. I share key findings and how updating programme profiles with Google Maps content can help with orientation.

We’ve distilled our understanding of prospective students into user journey maps so that we can share our insights with the University community. Over the past 3 years, we’ve conducted a great deal of research into the prospective student experience through the work to transform the degree finder and explore the future of open days.

Our prospective undergraduate student journey map is shaped by three high-level phases we identified in the user research we did in the process of designing and delivering the new University degree finders. It’s an at-a-glance summary for student recruitment and marketing colleagues.

The process of user research with prospective PhD students challenged our early assumptions of the applicant journey. We evolved our initial thinking, leading to two new and distinct user journey maps.

The user journey for students applying for a self-directed PhD is distinct from those looking for a project-based PhD, so we’ve mapped each separately with an accompanying commentary on what we learned from our user research.

The Postgraduate Entry 2026 website that launched on 7 October introduced new approaches to how we present degree programmes. Contributions from colleagues in schools, colleges and support units have been critical to our transformation of online provision.