{"id":297,"date":"2018-10-02T16:33:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T16:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/?p=297"},"modified":"2018-11-08T09:27:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T09:27:16","slug":"12-months-of-oneweb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2018\/10\/02\/12-months-of-oneweb\/","title":{"rendered":"12 months of OneWeb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/southampton.us13.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=d14c4bc31e680281c5d4ef841&amp;id=653839c543\">Sign up for OneWeb updates<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 months ago, pretty much to the day, we received the go ahead from the University Executive Board (UEB) to embark on an exciting journey to discover what a user-focused web presence could look like.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-292\" src=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/07\/OneWeb-stickers-cropped-1024x596.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/07\/OneWeb-stickers-cropped-1024x596.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/07\/OneWeb-stickers-cropped-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/07\/OneWeb-stickers-cropped-768x447.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">OneWeb is born<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We were frustrated at how far behind the University was. Many higher education institutions have ignored the digital era for too long, and it\u2019s time to be more courageous and embrace it. In order to make us more user-centric, we have to fix our content problem. Sadly, buying a new content management system (CMS) will not achieve this. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We launched a University-wide consultation with a mission to bring us into the digital age, and start meeting the expectations of our external and internal stakeholders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We recognised that, to really address the underlying issues that prevent us from scaling content creation, delivery, and governance across the organisation, we must first address:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our processes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the information that feeds into them<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how we use technology<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which in turn will enable us to improve our web services in ways we never thought possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we have alluded to in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our blog posts<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over the past few months, addressing our users\u2019 needs is our number one priority, and our understanding of how to do this has changed since we started. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the past year, I\u2019ve been lucky enough to work as part of an amazing team of talented people, whose expertise shines through everything they do. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still loads to do to realise our ambitions. Delivery of this vision requires collective effort. It\u2019s time to roll up our sleeves and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/southampton.us13.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=d14c4bc31e680281c5d4ef841&amp;id=653839c543\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">get involved<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We need to get this right. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we mark a year since our consultation, I thought I\u2019d look back on some highlights and lessons we\u2019ve learned.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the 12-months of consultation, we:<\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ran 20 user needs workshops on 5 campuses, in 3 weeks <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was intense &#8211; a lot of coffee was consumed! It was great to meet so many of you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-303\" src=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/Coffee-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/Coffee-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/Coffee-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/Coffee-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400; font-size: 10pt;\">Precious idea-fuel<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was a good opportunity to present our approach, get your views on what our users are trying to do on the website (and why), and consolidate this huge amount of valuable information into some useful user stories. It was wonderful to learn about and come to understand the challenges you face in your roles, and figure out how our plans could make things better.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Built a prototype for course pages \u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These pages are one of the main reasons people come to\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2018\/04\/13\/were-building-better-course-pages-heres-how-you-can-help\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Now we have a clear direction towards making it easier for users to find the information they need quickly. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the 10 weeks we allocated for this piece of work, we learned a lot and identified many pain points and opportunities. We\u2019re not quite finished, but we\u2019re making progress by\u200a building on our learnings, to form a basis for what we do next. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3. Kept you in the loop with regular blogs <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the course pilot, and as a commitment to our stakeholders, I wrote about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our progress<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> every single week. It was hard work but worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hosted Show and Tell sessions <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To conclude our Alpha phase, we hosted a couple of\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2018\/07\/06\/weeknotes-11-sprint-10-show-dont-tell\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Show and Tells<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the OneWeb Advisory Group and the wider University community. We used these to showcase what we had been up to and gather feedback. \u00a0These were open to everyone in the University, and we were also fortunate enough to welcome\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=padma%20gillen&amp;src=typd\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Padma Gillen<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who consulted with us on the project as a guest speaker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Show and Tells are a great discipline, and force us to be open and honest\u200a &#8211; \u200aeven when things don\u2019t go to plan.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researched and trialled new ideas <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our users gave us great feedback about what we\u2019ve done &#8211; this will save us some time further down the line.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-305\" src=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/david-travis-554904-unsplash-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/david-travis-554904-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/david-travis-554904-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2018\/10\/david-travis-554904-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">User research is a team sport<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shared (loudly) what we\u2019re up to, across our University and sector<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Building great digital products is crucial, but not enough on its own to transform an organisation. It\u2019s important to bring people along for the ride, picking up their feedback and expertise along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can\u2019t remember where I read it, but user research is a team sport (so true!). For that reason, we\u2019ve invested a lot in engaging people across our organisation in what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019ve spoken at a number of\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/iwmw.org\/iwmw2018\/talks\/user-needs-content-design-culture-change\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sector conferences<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2018\/05\/11\/weeknotes-3-sprint-2-shaping-the-experience\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">meet-ups<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, team meetings, boards and inductions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">7.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Got serious about design <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the process of building prototypes, we\u2019ve continued to think about shared principles and systems that help us design consistent experiences for our users. Although we\u2019re still a relatively small team, we\u2019ve already built a number of different components that could help us further down the line. Our team meet up regularly to share design patterns across our products. We\u2019ve also started to pull together some design patterns to help speed up development and make things consistent.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">8.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wrote several business cases <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was to ensure the project is adhering to its highest due-diligence principles. I won\u2019t lie \u2013 it was challenging and hard, but we\u2019ve got there with the help of many critical friends at the University.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s next<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s been an amazing and challenging year. We\u2019ve tried to balance research and learning with getting approval for stuff that makes a real difference to our users.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you to our awesome team, colleagues and customers for all the support so far.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019ve got lots more to do, and some exciting plans to share over the coming weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/southampton.us13.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=d14c4bc31e680281c5d4ef841&amp;id=653839c543\">If you would like to receive our regular updates, please sign up to our blog.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks again for your support, and reading!<\/p>\n<p>N.B thank you to my trusty reviewer,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jonathanvaughan1\/\">Jonny<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sign up for OneWeb updates 12 months ago, pretty much to the day, we received the go ahead from the University Executive Board (UEB) to embark on an exciting journey to discover what a user-focused web presence could look like. OneWeb is born We were frustrated at how far behind the University was. 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