The first EdWeb code sprint took place with 14 people coming together to discuss, develop, code and problem solve a set of requirements and changes for EdWeb. This is a collaboration between two teams within Information Services: Applications and UWP and with developers from all around the University.

With 9 projects, 43 participants and 11 hours of video footage, it has been a hectic 10 weeks working as Usability Testing Assistant for the pilot service. I’ve had a great time and look forward to more when we continue our work from September.

Over the past couple of months Vanessa and I have been supporting the development of a new web app for students. The Web, Graphics & Interaction Team invited us to get involved and help them make their new service as quick and user-friendly to use as possible. The collaboration has been a great success.

On Thursday 28 July, we’ll be deploying new functions into EdWeb: extra homepage flexibility, and a ‘call to action’ button for the central text editor.

The recently launched Media Hopper service for University staff and students provides an excellent (and free) means to record usability testing sessions. We recommend you try it as a means to easily share your findings with colleagues and stakeholders.

Our final Usability Testing Service showcase session of the summer (30 June) focused on the prospective postgraduate experience using the Degree Finder and associated websites.

At a recent Website Support Clinic, I worked with a web editor to digitize a sign-up form. If your department still uses paper forms for some processes, EdWeb’s form content type is a great time- and paper-saver.

Last month I had the honour of giving the opening plenary presentation at IWMW 2016, the UK Higher Education web professionals’ conference, in Liverpool. My topic was Lean UX, or as i expressed it, why requirements are hypotheses. Video and slides are now available.

I’m currently half way through my internship with the UWP team as a CMS support intern, evaluating changes in user behaviour following the migration of University websites to EdWeb. So far, a very enjoyable experience!

This summer I have been working with UWP to look into efficient and cost-effective ways for subtitling University-owned videos.