AI Assistants are an exciting new Drupal development, intended to support and empower content creators and site editors to achieve their tasks. Having designed a UX research approach to test Drupal AI Assistants with University staff, I conducted a pilot test to try out the set-up: planned scenario, tasks and identified UX success indicators.

In September 2024 Drupal unveiled AI Assistants as part of its new Drupal CMS product. Recognising the potential of this new feature to help and support University staff with web-related tasks, I collaborated with Jamie Abrahams, Drupal AI expert to learn how the Assistants worked and to design a UX research approach to test them. 

When you edit the text on a website, it’s helpful to follow a series of steps.

In summer 2024, Chris O’Neill, Green Digital Design Intern, completed a digital sustainability audit of the UX Service website. He looked at carbon emissions and page weight but also examined usage of the site, with analytics data and user research. We acted on his findings to make the site greener and more user-centred.

I was lucky to be invited to speak at DrupalCon, the annual European conference for Drupal. I delivered several sessions and attended others to learn more about advancements in Drupal.

Drupal is the open-source content management system used to power EdWeb and other important University digital systems. I’ve contributed UX knowledge to Drupal for several years and am involved in shaping Drupal CMS – Drupal’s new low-code product aimed at non-developers.

In October, I went to Liverpool to attend ContentEd, a conference for content professionals in the higher education sector. This post is about a couple of talks that stood out for me.

Since February 2024, we’ve trained more than 90 publishers in content design and have experimented with the ways we upskill University staff in content design techniques, to support them to produce good-quality, compliant online content that meets web visitors’ needs.

Last week I attended the Communications and Marketing (CAM) Conference for the first time. It’s a one-day event for University staff interested in communications and marketing, held at the John McIntyre Conference Centre and attended by around 200 people. You can find out more about the conference on the CAM Conference SharePoint (University login required […]

The first UCISA UX in Higher Education conference happened in September 2024. Reflecting on the day, there was much to take in and share, both as a UX practitioner and as lead of the team planning the conference.