People need detailed course information to decide between courses

Over the past 5 years I’ve been exploring the prospective student user journey, digging into the details of what people do when they choose what to study.

People have the same priority needs whether they’re looking for an undergraduate or taught postgraduate degree or a short course for continuing professional development:

• Need for granular detail on what the course will cover
• Need for teaching format and delivery schedule

They wanted to asses whether a given option was what they were looking for and whether they could manage it. For example:

• Is the level too advanced or not advanced enough?
• Can the way it’s delivered fit into their life circumstances?

Undergraduates wanted to know that the degree focused on their area of interest – for example practical versus theoretical physics or language for translation versus literature and culture.

Postgraduates wanted to know that the degree would take them in the right direction for their career goal.

People looking for continuing professional development wanted to know that the course covered the specific topic that they wanted to learn about.

They all wanted a breakdown of the learning delivery:

• Would they attend lectures and seminars or workshops
• What time of day or evening they would have to attend
• Would they attend online or in a room together (which many called in person)
• The proportion of self-directed study versus teacher delivered
• The amount of self-study time required

They viewed course pages with this information much more favourably than those without.

A highlight from my user research in higher education.