I started initially by interviewing key stakeholders at the college and understanding their requirements and needs. We also took the opportunity to understand what the client's expectations were and their motivations. With the stakeholders we derived some key objectives and pillars to help guide our design decisions, and to use these pillars to anchor our thinking throughout the project.

My next step was to understand Salford City College Group as an organisation,  the different colleges; what they stood for, the different types of courses available and their USP’s. In addition working with the college’s marketing team we gathered information on the brand perception and brand position that each college wanted to aspire to. 

I then went through a process of understanding the different types of audiences that may interact with the college. Working with the marketing team we created and sent out surveys to the different types of audiences to understand why they would use the website, their motivations, what would be useful information.  I took this forward to develop personas for groups of audiences.

I performed a competitor analysis of other local and national colleges. We scored how different colleges performed on different aspects of the website, such as content, navigation, course application process, brand identity etc.

To better understand the course application process, I mapped out the current workflow of how students would apply and enrol at the college. As well as the process I also highlighted the different systems and steps required by the college to identify what other technical solutions could assist in making the applications process more efficient.

The client had requested they wanted to make their content more lean as there was lots of legacy content that the current site has, that is irrelevant or out dated. We listed all the content out and working with the client we defined what would be required and what could be left out of the new solution. 

The Technical Director performed research on all the systems and the technical environment that our solution would exist in, to understand any constraints and third-party tools we need to be aware of. In addition the Head of QA performed analytics reports to gather quantitative data on current user behaviours to support our design decisions.

With all our findings in place working with the Technical Director we defined a broad solution of having multiple client facing websites, representing each college/institution and a single site to represent the college as a whole. This would then be powered by an API to handle all applications across the colleges and a single CMS for marketing to manage content.

After learning about the users and thinking of their thought process, I identified other areas of content which could be included in the site. My suggestions were based on content research and responses to the surveys conducted. The areas of content suggested was based on information potential applicants would like to know or use as part of their decision making process. I put this forward to the client to consider, for future development. 

Using the content audit I organised the structure for each site, trying to keep the navigation and structure of pages consistent for all the college sites. I created sitemaps to highlight my thinking and show what pages would exist on each site and how certain navigation items would link across these sites or to external systems.

To achieve the client’s key objectives for enrollment the key UX challenges were to optimise journeys for course search and course applications. I started by reviewing our research of the overall applications process and suggesting a more efficient workflow compared to the current process.

I then reviewed the responses from audiences from the surveys to put together a mental model that users were experiencing when performing a search or making an application. I identified key motivations, and pain points and suggested what features could address them. In addition while performing this exercise I also noted any business opportunities and future enhancements that could be introduced at a later stage.

I used the mental models to determine a more effective user workflow for searching courses and making applications. This helped me to determine the different steps required as well as the different UI elements that would need to be designed as part of the solution.

Our research showed that users would search in different ways based on their motivations and knowledge of courses. We chose to include:

 ■   Predictive text search for users who knew what they were looking for

 ■   Exploratory topical landing pages - where the content would communicate certain areas of study, careers and skills. This would allow users to discover courses by their personal interests and skills

 ■   Course List - to allow users to scan the full list of courses if they didn’t know what they were looking for

An additional, more engaging solution was to have a series of questions prompting users about their interests, hobbies, skills, careers and then to aggregate a list of courses based on their responses. This solution, although effective, would require a lot of research, categorising and mapping of courses to responses as well as extensive testing. Due to timelines and budget constraints this idea was not suggested as part of the solution, but was noted for future development. 

The course application between colleges, institutions and course types was varied. To ensure users had a simple and effective way to apply for courses I first went through a process of understanding all the common details and then deciphered what the variables were. 

The resulting application form was large, so for a better experience I broke it down into logical steps grouping fields under clear sections. Some reordering and further thinking was required to ensure any dependent fields would update the UI without causing confusion. To assist the user I added an introduction screen to ensure before starting the application, users could get all the details they required to hand, as well as understanding what stages the form consists of. 

I also suggested a feature allowing users to come and fill in their application at a later stage using some form of authentication e.g. a login. However, due to limitations on timelines and budget this feature was not suggested as part of the solution, but was suggested as a future enhancement.

To better connect course search and the application form I suggested a course shortlist feature where users can add any courses they are interested in to a short list. This shortlist would appear on the application form so the user can select which courses they want to apply for, without having to repeat the search during the application process.