It’s been a whole year since we launched the new and refreshed Effective Digital Content online course. To celebrate the one-year anniversary I thought I would reflect on how the year has gone, share a bit more about what we’ve learnt along the way, and what is coming next. If you are keen to read […]

From the birthplace of the original Industrial Revolution, a group of around 2000 intrepid EdTech practitioners and enthusiasts sought to examine and understand what has been dubbed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution.’ I was fortunate to be among them for Jisc Digifest 2026 in Birmingham this week. There were many opportunities to contribute and get creative […]

Following a successful launch of Effective Digital Content, our internal course that staff complete to learn and practice fundamental content design skills, the UX Service saw an opportunity to make the course more widely available, on the University’s Short Courses platform. In May 2025, after months of user research-informed development work, my UX Service team […]

A couple of weeks ago, I packed my notebook and headed to London for two back-to-back events organised by Boye & Co: The UK Digital Leaders meeting and CMS Experts. After two days and a lot of discussions with the support of quality coffee, and delicious Thai and Indian food, I took the train back […]

This year the User Experience Service have been working on improving the University’s editorial style guide. Nick Daniels, Hannah Watson and I have blogged about previous aspects of this work: Why we’re refreshing the editorial style guide An analysis of responses to our editorial style guide survey Reviewing and rewriting the formatting section of the […]

In September, Nick and Mel from the UX team attended Assistive Technology Day, a training event organised by the Scottish Sensory Centre. Sessions focused on how technology can support deaf and hard of hearing students, with talks from educational audiologists and the JISC accessibility team. Part of our role in the UX Service is to […]

Earlier this year, the UX Service launched a new version of the Effective Digital Content (EDC) online course. This blog outlines why the course matters and how it supports anyone involved in creating or managing digital content across the University.  In today’s digital world, information is constantly competing for attention. At the University, we publish […]

Earlier this year, our team worked with the Digital Skills team to develop a short webinar aimed at staff who support students. The goal was to help our colleagues understand how students can use MyEd to traverse our complex digital estate more effectively. Why the webinar was needed The primary need that this webinar fulfils […]

This year the User Experience Service have been working on improving the editorial style guide. In this post, we outline what this work has involved and what’s coming up next. The editorial style guide is an essential reference point for publishers of digital content across the University. It sets out the conventions for our in-house […]

This is a joint blog with reflections from Katie Spearman and Mel Batcharj from the User Experience Service who attended the conference. This year the conference was online The ContentEd conference this year was a two-day event held completely online. There were some definite pros to this approach – there was a packed line up […]