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.

Join us on Wednesday 22nd January to watch school editors using the new degree programme editorial interface.

This blog is part of a series on a mini-project the Content Operations team completed in August and September 2024. In this instalment, I review my approach to usability testing for new postgraduate funding content, highlighting what I would do differently if I could do it over again with a little less time pressure.