University of Birmingham

Challenge

In 2023, the University of Birmingham underwent a radical new rebrand, but needed help in applying this to their website and digital products. There was also an opportunity here to improve their website UX, and better reflect the University’s offering, tailoring the design to users. I joined the team to bring the new brand to life in digital, and pick up UX and research activities before redesigning course pages to be informed by user needs and behaviours.

Approach

In collaboration with the client and a digital strategist, I did some user, stakeholder and market research, looking at competitors and other universities, conducted a content audit, and did some light user journey mapping, to make sure we had a solid foundation with which to move into testing.

After consolidating our research, we defined assumptions and hypotheses around design, functionality and content which informed prototypes, tested with current and prospective students in one-to-one online moderated sessions. Results of testing were positive with an overall satisfaction rating of 75% and lots of useful insights. Feedback formed the basis of a refined prototype and content recommendations to help course editors design pages in line with users’ expectations.