As part of our collaboration with IS Helpline, we worked to improve the web content on getting your first student card – and saw the support calls on this topic nearly halved.

Last week, Duncan MacGruer and I ran a workshop at the IWMW conference in York, demoing the continuous improvement process we’ve been using in our Helpline collaboration project. In this post, I highlight what we did in the workshop and the insights we got from attendees.

Our latest showcase event for the User Experience Service focused on case studies of recent projects. Lightning talks were followed by a chance to chat with members of project and service teams who had commissioned the work.

We’re running another of our showcase events to highlight how the pilot User Experience (UX) Service is helping a wide range of projects get closer to their target audiences and make better decisions. Booking for Wednesday 4 April is now open.

The end of 2017 marks the first anniversary of our collaboration with IS Helpline to iteratively improve their IT help provision. A year in, we look back at some of our achievements in the process of improving the user experience around IT support at the University.

This summer we worked with IS Helpline, Student Induction and Student Systems to improve our digital provision for new students.

Our tech team recently did some great work for IS Helpline, creating a bespoke webform that directs users to self-serve before submitting an enquiry. The form itself, though, isn’t what will ultimately help reduce support calls—it’s an iterative process of user testing, editorial improvements and analysis.

We recently launched a new contact form for IS Helpline, which aims to reduce support calls by providing links to self-service help pages. We are looking to expand this functionality as a service to other University departments.

I recently re-ran a usability study for the IS (Information Services) Helpline which I had first conducted back in June. The results, though far from perfect, are encouraging enough to reaffirm our conviction in the value of repeat usability testing.

Join us for another open invite usability testing review workshop, which is showcasing our work with IS Helpline to enhance the online student experience. You’ll see how we’ve improved the website support experience based on our last round of testing, and learn how to run the process for yourself.