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.

On February 4th, we hosted an open invitation online session to share our insights on flexible study, short courses and the ICL route to a postgraduate qualification. This was of particular relevance to colleagues in related fields, such as Short Courses, Executive Education, Continuing Professional Development, and the part-time intermittent route to a postgraduate award. […]

We’re running an open invite event on Microsoft Teams to share what we learned through staff engagement and user research about the University’s flexible study options. This includes the part-time intermittent (sometimes called ‘Invoiced at Course Level’) route to a postgraduate award and its overlap with other flexible study options. Join us to learn more […]

We recently started work on a project to explore the presentation of the Invoiced at Course Level route to study for a postgraduate award. This user research and business analysis piece will help us understand how to best present this route to study in future.

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.

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 tagged along with user researcher Nicola Dobiecka on her quest to understand the postgraduate research (PGR) application experience to discover the points where user research and analytics overlap.