Research
UX Design
UI Design
Introduction
London South Bank University rank as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the city of London, boasting indsutry and relevant degrees and a huge drive towards sustainability.
With a strong focus on driving a tech presence, LSBU leverage their digital landscapes to inspire student acquisition and empower existing students amidst their journey.
Team
Toby Margetts - Strategical Director
Leo Cammish - UX Designer
Catia Pedrosa - UX Designer
Arkadiusz Chatys - Sr Engineer
Matt Partridge - Sr. Accnt Manager
What I Did
User Interviews
User Testing
Experience design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Prototyping
Results
At Squiz I worked with LSBU as a strategical UX partner, providing their digital team with web and app based solutions. The output ranged from strategic reports to back technical implementations, and interactive design work for feature projection and/or build purposes.
Background
Every year LSBU recognised that clearing was a painful process, and notoriously left students confused and demotivated with the processes differing slightly from the general application process.
A campaign design showcasing the final clearing hub product.
To discover the core issues, we spoke to the users
Summary
User Interviews
We interviewed the existing students and the previous student alumni that had attended LSBU through the clearing process looking to understand their experiences.
Clearing Data Analysis
We worked with LSBU in gathering significant data surrounding the clearing process in the previous 5 years to learn more about the process and gather quantitative statistics to inform decisions.
A prioritisation session held to identify key pain points within the clearing process.
Understanding
Whilst the number of applicants placed into Universities remains far greater than pre:covid figures, the number of placements yearly remains on the decline.
With the placement figure appearing to be on the decline, we recognised the opportunity to use data gathered during the pandemic to help LSBU streamline the clearing process.
Understanding
Off the back of Covid, international students applying to University through the clearing process is increasing for obvious reasons.
Whilst students are managing to navigate their way, international students still echoed the lack of information to help them through the process.
Understanding
76% of the students we interviewed intently described the lack of information when being placed through clearing.
Many students walked into campus with little information on what to do or where to go.
Problem
Students being placed at LSBU via the Clearing process were not presented with sufficient information prior to attending.
Without a dedicated repository of information, users commonly described themselves referring to other University websites and corners of the internet to seek information on the process and location.
Problem
International students who are non-native speakers had no reference to the student alumni who had run through similar experiences, causing a nervousness.
Without any reference to students in a similar situation, international students found clearing to be a daunting process and only encountered others running through a similar situation when they arrived on campus.
How might we
The chart above shows that the number of students placed at their firm choice university is down by 5.6% year-on-year, indicating a greater focus on clearing should be exercised by universities.
With the placement figure appearing to be on the decline, we recognised the opportunity to use data gathered during the pandemic to help LSBU streamline the clearing process.
Synthesis
To resolve this, we suggested the application of a knowledge base dedicated to the clearing process. In implementing a hub of this nature, users would have access to an entire infrastructure of information without having to search explore separate corners of the website.
Virtual Campus Tours
A particularly handy feature during Covid for universities was the virtual campus tours, but with the increase in international students being placed through clearing this feature holds particularly high value.
Alumni Stories
The addition of alumni stories allows prospective students the opportunity to engage with and learn about previous students, reducing the anxiety students feel when making the move or being placed.
Course Information
Course information and how clearing affects placement for particular courses.
Location / What’s On
For students all across the planet, understanding their potential location was considered an absolute necessity.
Synthesis
It was important to LSBU that we productise Clearing Hub, with the university keen to delegate the management of the hub between Squiz and their digital team. The intention was to evolve the hub into a native application in the near future and further innovate the approach towards clearing.
Solution
We worked towards completing the MVP release of the roadmap, delivering key datasets that were immediately available to us that carry significant value to prospective students.
To maintain a cyclical approach, LSBU would continue to add campaign and innovation led content to the roadmap, ensuring the hub would be consistently relevant.
Solution
I immediately worked towards creating a vastly simplified opening viewport. Through user testing, we discovered a lot of confusion based on the level of options piled into each viewport. Whilst we understand the intention was to present all options to the user, this was very apparently ineffective and caused a great deal of confusion and drop out.
We added a consistent AWS powered chatbot to empower users in their journey. myHub is still very early in it's lifespan, and users are yet to fully understand its journey fluently. Utilising our AWS chatbot allows the user a hand holding reference point to turn to should they lose their way within their journey.
A simplified global nav offered far greater clarity.
Solution
SSO allows users a completely personable experience without having to rely on cookies. Whilst the challenge here provided a number of hurdles from a legal perspective, we managed to navigate a data store solution using Squiz data store that empowered myHub users the ability to save important areas of information that included documentation, tasks and actions, communication, and much more.
The benefit of SSO enabled Squiz & SSCL to work together in constantly driving innovation forward based on feature requests and backlog, thus the constant drive to push more features utilising SSO.
Allowing users the ability to refer to a central repository of tasks and actions hinged on the execution of personalisation, and this was successfully implemented.
Solution
Organisations that utilise myHub inherited an out of the box option to incorporate 'Quicklinks' into their home screen whether users are signed in or not. Quicklinks can be organised in multiple ways, be it manual or based on most actionable tasks per organisation.
Solution
Creating a 'favourites' section on the landing page was one of the most popular suggestions, but the most challenging part of this was making sure the feature empowered both signed in and non-signed in users.
In order to make this beneficial, the consideration was to continue to utilise the most visited pages within the company infrastructure, as well as the 'recently visited' functionality that already existed. This gives users the opportunity as first time users to visit and utilise myHub features through prompt.
Once a user is signed in, they have the capability to save any visited page or operative to their home screen and customise their myHub portal.
Solution
The utilisation of Squiz Funnelback (Squiz product) empowered how we approached smart search. With the sheer quantity of content, myHub greatly welcomed smart search optimisation.
Lesson
As a new product, we discovered multiple gaps within the clearing process that could be simplified through technical innovation.
We received a lot of great, thought evoking feedback off the back of go-live. The knowledge base will continue to be treating as an ever-growing infrastructure that gathers data from it's users and continues to grow in the way it delivers content until LSBU take it into phase 2.