The newest edition of the degree finder launched on 2 March 2026. This is the first year that degree finder School editors had access to make changes in the new system, and the first time we’ve had two editions of the degree finder hosted in the same location. We also had to contend with new […]

The 2027 undergraduate entry went live last week, and it was the first time that two editions were published in the new degree finder at the same time. The team went on campus to conduct some usability testing with it. In this blog I’ll show how testing it has given us the confidence that displaying […]

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.

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 recently reviewed the new undergraduate study website with 19 students, using a summative usability testing approach to produce a performance scorecard. While the new site scored really well, we identified a few areas to improve further.

Our team went on campus during the recent Undergraduate Open Day to do some pop-up research and check some design concepts with prospective students and their parents.

Last year, we carried out usability testing around the proposed search and filter interface for the future degree finder. We also tested the effectiveness of updated navigation features to help users orientate themselves on programme pages. We were pleased to see students encounter no major usability issues when interacting with these.

I recently ran an open invite usability review for our latest round of usability testing. Normally I run these sessions within our team, but we wanted to involve colleagues across the University in our work to improve the editorial experience. It was also an opportunity for school editors to see the new degree programme editorial […]

I conduct a lot of usability testing remotely and I need to test on both desktop and mobile devices. It’s tricky to create a realistic environment for testing remotely on mobile devices. I’ve found a method called ‘laptop hugging’ that works really well.