The Role of Profiles project produced 10 recommendations for an improved University profile provision. To start actioning these, I assembled a working group of specialists and drew on UX design principles – implementing practical prioritisation while seeking innovative solutions that addressed the research findings.

Drupal is the University’s content management system and Drupal CMS – its new ready-to-use site-building product – is developing apace. As Drupal UX Research Lead, I’ve used concept testing to gather quick insights that keep interface decisions user-focused and keep development moving.

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.

As AI-generated content becomes increasingly prevalent, questions of trust emerge, prompting a growing need for transparency about the creation of digital content. As part of an academic study, I designed and prototyped ways to display provenance data for synthetic content made by an AI searchbot on a University website.

When the team behind the health and wellbeing website contacted the UX Service for help improving their student-facing content ahead of the new academic year, we were happy to oblige. Adopting a coaching approach, we guided them through usability testing to identify and prioritise content changes, to make it easier for students to find out […]

Contributing to the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines, I enjoyed working with talented editors and UX professionals to shape 21 guidelines in the User Experience Design category. In this post, I spotlight selected guidelines, reflecting on how they were written, and how they encapsulate the ethos of the principles behind them.

For the past year I have been part of a UX task force developing the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines. As the guidelines reach the milestone of Draft Note status, I reflect on what they stand to achieve, and share insights from our process to make these guidelines as useful and usable as possible.

Continuing our UX research on AI features, we worked with the EdHelp team to design and run user tests to learn how students respond to their ELM-enhanced online enquiry service, AskEdHelp. This post documents our methods, findings and recommendations. 

Last year, our Green Digital Design Intern audited the Edinburgh Innovations website for digital sustainability, and made several recommendations. This year’s internship went further – researching how users actually interacted with the site and uncovering potential to improve both the site’s UX and its environmental impact.

Building on the success of our in-person UX conference last year, I worked with UCISA to organise and run a hybrid UX Community Day. It succeeded in bringing together 185 professionals from 60 institutes for a day of peer-to peer UX knowledge exchange. I reflect on organising an impactful and enriching event.