{"id":617,"date":"2019-07-30T22:08:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T22:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/?p=617"},"modified":"2019-07-31T10:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T10:00:24","slug":"a-year-in-four-months-the-end-of-the-beginning-of-oneweb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2019\/07\/30\/a-year-in-four-months-the-end-of-the-beginning-of-oneweb\/","title":{"rendered":"A year in four months – the end of the beginning of OneWeb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine a world where university content is connected, easy to find and follow.<\/p>\n

Imagine a world where our course (programme) pages are easy to understand and benchmark well against competitors and existing course pages.<\/p>\n

Imagine a world where user needs are brought together with university policies, rules and goals, to create joined up experiences that help our users to do what they want to do instead of confuse them.<\/p>\n

Okay, you get the gist – as the financial year draws to a close, so too does phase one of OneWeb. It has been short (we officially started in April), relentless and, it would be fair to say, not without its challenges. Nevertheless, we have delivered what we promised – in a very short space of time!<\/p>\n

Thank you<\/h3>\n

Before I go any further a few thank yous<\/strong> are due to all who contributed to this phase. First and foremost: my team<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This team is tough and resilient – and they rose to every challenge along the way. The one consistent thing about change or transformation projects is that you’ll encounter issues and difficulties. This is perfectly natural, but can breed uncertainty. The challenge for us has been to maintain our focus on delivering genuine value and working through problems without getting bogged down. We kept going despite the inherent difficulties.<\/p>\n

Thanks also to our stakeholders: the Advisory Group<\/a> and Programme Board<\/a> members<\/strong> who have been looking at ways of helping us and navigating through many of the University\u2019s processes and internal complexities.<\/p>\n

And of course a very big thank you to all colleagues<\/strong> who worked very hard to help us meet short deadlines despite being very stretched themselves. We know it wasn\u2019t easy, and we really appreciate it. Without you, our job would not have been possible!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a summary of what the last few weeks of delivery have been like.<\/p>\n

OneWeb Financial Year 1<\/h3>\n

The main focus of this financial year was around the delivery of our university\u2019s key product pages for the undergraduate (UG) journey. It wasn\u2019t the only thing we addressed as part of the UG journey – many of you contributed to our understanding, either through workshops<\/a>, interviews<\/a>, design sprint<\/a>, or the meetings that helped us with some of the nuances around the journey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also made time to deliver a couple of significant discoveries around Postgrad Taught (PGT) user journey and Research, with main focus on REF since it is a university strategic priority. So quite a lot in a short space of time.<\/p>\n

For now, let me update you on the UG course pages and what are the plans prior to launch\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

UG Course Pages: what are the problems we are trying to solve?<\/b><\/h3>\n

We wrote about issues with <\/span>duplication<\/span><\/a>, information architecture, governance, and compliance (e.g. CMA), but when we started a few months ago we had very conflicting pieces of information about how many programmes we actually offer and who is accountable for them. So the first thing we did was a comprehensive audit of the content we had, how it was distributed and how it was performing. This in itself was a valuable piece of work for the University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When designing solutions, we started with a real paired-back version of a course page, initially as basic wireframes for the content, which through several iterations, became a designed prototype that our developer used to build the page. By the end of April we had a minimum viable product (MVP) which was used to complete the first round of testing with prospective students. By this point, we already knew that the key facts tested well with users. We also found out further details that users would like to see on the existing UoS website and competitor sites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nNew key facts section<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, we\u2019ve completed five rounds of user testing<\/a> (pretty much every couple of weeks). We talked to users about structure, navigation and generally how they consume the content. More importantly, we observed how they searched for and used the content to complete the tasks they needed to do.<\/p>\n

Our research tells us that people are often unsure about the information we (and competitors) provide when interacting with universities. This can result in people not applying for the right course, or applying to a course that they have no chance of getting on because the entry requirements or grades are not clear. In addition, because they do not understand all the terminology at that point, they\u2019re also missing some vital information about the awards we offer, the location of the course, options and more.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re doing about it<\/h3>\n

So, in creating a new design of the course pages, we are trying to remove all the barriers we may inadvertently put in place when users compare and find the courses they would like to apply for. For universities, managing complex legislation and associated compliance issues presents challenges when delivering digital services. It\u2019s no stretch to say that our own internal processes are contributory to some of the usability issues we found, and as a result this has also led to inconsistencies in information. This is something this particular phase has highlighted in a significant way.<\/p>\n

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\nOur course page evolution April to June 2019<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be clear, these problems are not unique to Southampton. Universities around the world are exploring how can they simplify admission information and compliance issues for users. And there is a real challenge tackling legislation, policy and rules in a consumable and accessible way for users.<\/p>\n

Why this is important<\/h3>\n

As a result of only a few months\u2019 hard work, we now have a digital product (aka course page) that users can navigate, scan and retrieve information from with ease. And it\u2019s a well-tested product<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In total we completed over 25 hours of user testing with prospective students:<\/p>\n

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  • All prospective students in testing commented on the clear and simple design and layout. Here’s Liam on the importance of simple and clean design.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n