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.

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.

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.