It is difficult to think of a university that does not treat video as a core part of its content strategy. Across admissions, communications, and academic departments, the assumption has quietly taken hold that if something can be filmed, an open day, a student or alumni testimonial, it probably should be. The result is that […]

AI development keeps evolving as do the ways people seek to use AI. Traditional software development runs the risk of trying to perfect AI features people won’t use. Revisiting our previous AI research helped me tease out new opportunity spaces for AI features to help with content design tasks.

Riding on the success of our internal Effective Digital Content course, we set out to expand by building an external version for the short courses platform, taking a product thinking approach. Three months on, experimenting with a proof-of-concept course has convinced to pause this work – to avoid falling into a build trap.

In January 2026, Alex Burford, a learning technologist from the School of Informatics contacted the UX Service following completion of the new Effective Digital Content online course. Alex had really enjoyed the course and was keen to explore ways to implement the content design best practice principles it teaches within Open Course – the platform […]

AI tools to support content tasks are becoming more and more widespread. As part of my contributions to open-source Drupal I’ve been researching how to prepare and package content design and style rules that these tools can use effectively.

Progressive thinking about inclusive content combined with a review of our content design tools prompted us to look at the effectiveness of our Inclusive Language Guide. Before we could think about improving the guide, however, we needed to ensure staff knew it existed.

A question has been doing the rounds recently: do we actually need site search? It’s a fair question and one I have been giving a lot of thought to. With AI-powered summaries increasingly answering queries before users even reach a website, and with navigation that, when it works, can get people where they need to […]

Last month I was honoured to receive a national award for Outstanding Leadership from industry body UCISA, recognising my work driving positive change through UX. This achievement prompted me to reflect on my experiences leading UX in different realms over the past few years, and to think about what UX leadership means to me.

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.