Dawn Ellis and Neil Allison presented on improving the user experience (UX) of university websites. They discussed how UX focuses on understanding user needs through personas and testing. A case study showed how generating personas for postgraduate programs, testing experiences, and making enhancements improved the application process. They concluded regular research, iterative improvements, and optimizing content management systems are important for sustainable UX practices with limited resources. UX is critical as it represents the university brand through student and applicant experiences.

1. Marketing is dead
Long live UX!
Dawn Ellis
Neil Allison
CIM Higher Ed Market Interest Group
Conference 21 March 2013
Twitter: #hemig6 #ux

2. Welcome
Dawn Ellis Neil Allison
Director UX Manager
@DawnEllis @usabilityed
University Website Programme
The University of Edinburgh
www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme

3. Overview
• Context and background
– Our philosophy
• Intro to user experience (UX)
– Personas
• Case studies
• Conclusions and questions

4. Profile
Founded: Influential Alumni and Staff:
1583 Charles Darwin, Robert Louis
Global Ranking: Stevenson, James Clerk
Top 30 Maxwell, Alexander Graham
Bell, James Simpson, Adam
Smith, Walter Scott, David
Hume, Ian Wilmut, J K
Rowling, Stella
Rimmington, Peter
Higgs, Katherine
Grainger, Chris Hoy…

5. 2002 – 2012 Growth
Students:
21,438 30,423

6. The University website
• 250,000 web pages
– 45,000 published with central CMS
– Around 600 supported CMS users
• 5 million unique external visitors in 2012
– To the 45,000 pages we monitor
• Diverse range of audiences
– Demand for content in cycles

7. Operational fit
• 2006: Established as a project
– To “Roll out the CMS”
• 2008: Embedded as a programme
– Managing the CMS
– Focus on web publishers’ skills
• 2012: Website & process enhancement
– User experience, analytics & website appraisal
– CMS review, focus on web publisher experience

8. University objectives
• Attract the best students
• Improve conversion rates
• Enhance the student experience
• Increase revenues for the University

9. Reality of University web publishing
• Devolved & probably always will be
• Significant skills gap
– IA planning, web writing & comms, usability
• Very little time available for web management
– Even less for local strategy & coordination

10. Reality of website user behaviour
• They scan, they don’t read
• They’re task driven
• They want quick answers
• They don’t care about what you care about

11. Our philosophy, where we’re heading
• It’s about process not project
• People and collaboration first
• Technology is a cog, not the steering wheel

12. Intro to UX
What is UX?

13. What is UX?
• UX = User eXperience
– Or CX – Customer eXperience
– Should we be talking SX?
• It’s the sum of all experiences
a customer has with a business
• “A star to sail your ship by”
– Jesse James Garrett
• “A flag in the sand on the horizon”
– Jared Spool

14. Advertising and UX
“Advertising is about getting the customer
to love the company.
UX is about getting the company
to love the customer.”
Whitney Hess

15. Usability and UX – a scenario
“The customer, looking for a new digital camera, goes to the large
electronic retailer’s website. She quickly finds the camera she
wants, puts it in the cart, and without incident, pays for it using the
option to pick it up at the store that same day. Quick, easy — she is
pleased and excited to receive her camera.
Website usability
When she arrives at the store, she initially doesn’t know where to
go, as no visual clues present themselves. After a ten-minute wait at
the customer service desk, she’s told she’s in the wrong place and
needs to find another desk, this one labelled “Online Receiving”. Once
she finds that desk, the clerk, who obviously can’t wait for his shift to
end, sighs and says the camera she’s purchased is out of stock. She can
buy a different camera at this point, but to receive a credit for her
original online purchase, she needs to call an 0800 number. She ends
up leaving the store without a camera and a charge on her credit card
she needs to resolve.”
User experience
Jared Spool

16. Usability, UX & Brand

17. Intro to UX
Why does UX matter?

18. Marketing has changed
In the golden age of mass communication
Image = Reality
In the new fragmented, aggregated age:
Reality = Reality
Foolproof.co.uk

19. Roles are reversed
"The customer is now the advertiser.
When they search they are placing an ad.
Traditional marketing is about getting
attention, while web marketing
is about giving it.“
Gerry McGovern

20. Google’s philosophy
From “10 things we know to be true”
bit.ly/google-10things
“1. Focus on the user
and all else will follow”

22. Econsultancy.com
• But what does this mean in the Higher Education environment?
• Applications? Conversions? Repeat study? Brand perception?

23. Why should UX matter to you?
• A strong marketing campaign
for a product with poor UX
can ultimately be damaging
• If the aim of marketing is to create a customer
then the aim of UX is to create
a happy customer

24. Intro to UX
Communicating UX

25. 3 steps to an effective UX vision
• Step 1: Focus on Research
– Must be grounded in reality
• Step 2: Focus on Experience
– Express for the user, not the product
• Step 3: Share the Vision
– Everyone needs to share and buy into it
Jared Spool
www.uie.com

26. Personas – essential in the UX toolkit
• A stand-in for real users
– Representing the needs of user groups
• Identifying the user motivations, expectations
and goals that drive online behaviour
• Based on knowledge of real users
• Helping us keep the user experience at the forefront
as website content, features & services develop

27. But what
are the
benefits?

28. How personas can help
• Personas bring focus
• Personas build empathy
• Personas encourage consensus
• Personas bring efficiencies
The User Is Always Right
by Steve Mulder

29. Personas are not market segments
• Segmentation identifies and measures
the size of different groups at a high-level
• Personas provide understanding of the user
context
– Needs, motivations, behaviour &
associated design challenges (or opportunities)
• Market segmentation provides valuable input
into the persona generation process

30. How to share a UX vision
• Tell a story
• Draw a picture
• Create a video

31. Tell a story
• Easiest to do
• Easy to collaborate on
• Storytelling is an ancient
and universal activity
UX narrative: University of Edinburgh
UX cartoon: David Travis, Userfocus.co.uk

32. Mood-time graphs
• Because everything
doesn’t happen at once
uxmatters.com
• We can lose and gain
user goodwill along the
way
• Prioritise the biggest
pain points
cxpartners.com

33. Some user journeys are complex…
• …involving multiple
channels and iterative
decision making
• UX consultants Nomensa
recently reported on the
undergraduate applicant
experience
bit.ly/nomensa-ug-ux-report
Graphic: bit.ly/adaptive-path-journey

34. Video
http://youtu.be/ByuFqQBPn8c

35. Intro to UX
Measuring UX

36. How can I measure UX?
• It depends on what you’re looking to find
• There is no silver bullet
– No single tool or approach can do everything
• Analytics + enquiry monitoring
+ market research + user research
= Greater than the sum of their parts
• Build the means to calculate ROI into your metrics

37. How many blind men are there
round your elephant?

38. Regular reporting is key
From prioritisation…
Define user Agree Establish Prioritise Implement Evaluate
groups business user needs needs & changes changes
requirements requirements
To a report card:
Business User needs Agreed Rating
requirements priorities
Prospective 1. Check entry 1. Course 1. Entry req’ts B
postgraduate requirments structure 2. Fees & C+
(taught) 2. Check fees 2. Career opps funding
3. Get in touch 3. Funding opps 3. Structure F
4. Make strong 4. Fees 4. Contact C
application 5. Apply 5. Careers A
Based on the work of Lou Rosenfeld: bit.ly/rosenfeld-redesign

39. Case study
Enhancing the prospective
postgraduate experience

40. Our aims
• Identify trends in prospective student behaviour
• Monitor behaviour & introduce metrics
• Measurably enhance the UX
• Communicate the UX
• Collaborate with academics & administrators
stakeholders throughout
– Hand over for ongoing enhancement

41. What we did
1. Generated personas with stakeholders
– 3 programme areas
2. Agreed ideal UX for each persona
3. User testing role playing the personas
4. Website analytics & offline data review
– To check user testing findings
5. Website & process enhancements

42. The student personas
• All 3 colleges
• International & UK
• Distance learners
& on-campus
• Full & part time

43. Findings & trends
• All programmes broadly wanted the same things
from their personas
• Personas represented a range of focus based on
recruitment & enquiry management priorities:
– Strong candidates
– Non-standard applicants
– Weak candidates
• Same issues observed across all studies
– Participant frustrations with generic high-level content
and looping journeys
– Programme aspirations for UX some way from findings

44. UX pain points
• Multiple contact points
– Additional issues for research applicants
• Some essential central information
caused difficulties & dissatisfaction
• Profile & ranking content unconvincing
– “It’s easy to say you’re great…”

45. Next steps
• Full review of enhancements
– Anecdotal results so far excellent
– Unnecessary queries down
– Quality applicants up
• Further website & process tweaks based on
follow up research findings
• Hand over ongoing process to programmes
• Case study & promotion of methodology

46. Our challenges
• Organisational politics & silos
– Our users don’t care about these
• Devolved website management
– Easy to lose perspective
• Available time and expertise
– Ongoing support & promotion needed

47. CMS UX
A final thought

48. Process is vital
• In website development projects, the content
and the journey is often an afterthought
• These critical elements are left to the
non-specialists who have no time
• We need to stop managing web projects
like print projects

49. So what do we do?
• Optimising the CMS UX encourages:
– Better content
– More active management
– Fresher content
• Saving CMS users time frees them up for other
activities :
– Audience engagement
– Social media mgt
– Conversion activity
• Think beyond the initial website delivery

50. Conclusions
• UX is your brand
– You’re being talked about, word-of-mouth has a long reach
• In a world of limited resource and non-specialism,
it’s about sustainable process & iterative improvement
• Marketing is social, so it’s in the hands
of front-of-house colleagues
• Break out of the boom-and-bust cycle
– A new design doesn’t (necessarily) solve anything
• Marketing still important, but now there are
more pieces in a bigger jigsaw

51. Thank you
Questions?
Twitter: #hemig6 #ux
Dawn.Ellis@ed.ac.uk @DawnEllis
Neil.Allison@ed.ac.uk @usabilityed
www.ed.ac.uk/website-programme