How prospective students use university websites

Over the past five years I’ve conducted user research for the University of Edinburgh as part of their work to transform the information they provide for prospective students on their website.

I’ve learned about the experiences of prospective students learned in detail — those looking for an undergraduate degree, a taught postgraduate degree, a PhD and flexible part-time study options.

I’ve reviewed many university websites and observed many people in research sessions using different university websites.

Some things that keep showing up:

• People visiting a university website typically experience it as ‘the’ university website — one entity — so it can be confusing when different areas of the institution switch their branding and visual presentation.

I’ve seen this with faculties, graduate schools, research centres or groups and institutes.

• Someone looking to pursue postgraduate research needs to be aware of faculties, departments, schools, institutes, and centres because knowing those things is integral to their goal of finding the right research opportunity or project.
• Almost everyone else is looking for “the thing that will help them achieve their goal”, and it’s not a priority to know which particular section of the institution provides it at the start.
• A lot of people are unfamiliar with how academia and Higher Education work, for example, gaining credit, how degrees are structured and how universities differ in their approach to the same thing.

Terminology is a major consideration

For example, is a degree called ‘a course’ or a ‘programme’? If the university also calls professional development or short courses ‘a course’ how can people find the type of course they’re looking for? What’s a ‘Microcredential’?

People often don’t completely understand academia

Many people are unaware of the full range of academic awards and their corresponding titles, and they often don’t know the abbreviations used for awards. Even for prospective postgraduates ‘PGCert’, ‘PGDip’ often did not convey that they are potential postgraduate academic qualifications.

Perhaps this resonates with others doing user research, UX design, or Service Design in higher education?

Sharing learning from the in-depth user research I’ve done recently in higher education