Overview

 

Our vision is to: "provide a digital experience which makes the user feel the University’s online environment is centred around them”

This programme will develop a user-centred interface for the University Enterprise Portal MyEd.

The work will follow  the Dashboard concept proposed by Headscape and its idea of “top tasks for a student, not systems”. The new design will use a task-based structure that is cohesive and easily understandable. The project will benefit all MyEd users, but will particularly focus on improvements to the student experience.

This work directly addresses areas in which we have fallen short in the NSS result including:

  • Assessment and feedback: We plan to implement integrated views for students, which will highlight key information such as assessment results.
  • Academic support: The new design will support students by making important information easy to find and understand, and eliminating jargon and acronyms. Tasks will be listed so students can move smoothly through administrative processes.
  • Organisation and management: The new structure will be organised according to task, so students can learn about changes quickly. It also gives staff control over their own data, so they can communicate any updates to students with the minimum amount of effort.

We have already used this approach with great success during our joint ODL Workflow project with Student Systems, and this can be considered as a proof of concept.

This programme will implement a new design for all of MyEd, which would be available to all users. This work would bring us closer to what is being offered by peer institutions in the UK and abroad. From Headscape: “Other organisations in the educational sector have been providing dashboards for students for several years…The increasing prevalence of this kind of user experience will be filtering through to student expectations at universities.”

Our guiding design principles are:

  • Don't make students work for it
    • Bring together all the information they need to do a task o Use simple language, without jargon or acronyms
    • Use task-based navigation (the same model used by GOV.UK)
  • Show students what they need when they need it
    • Show "Just in time" contextual reminders or prompts
    • Pull data about the student that allows us to present a personalised view
  • Allow students to use whatever device they want
    • Use accessible design from the ground up
    • Provide additional support for mobile, using modern technology
    • As Headscape describes: “What am I doing when? I want to know whether I’m on my phone, tablet, or computer”

This programme includes work to develop MyEd and the Notifications Service. The work is also related to and will depend on the work being completed under the Digital Transformation Enterprise APIs and User Experience Services programme. The work will progress alongside the Service Excellence Student Administration MyEd Pilot project which will be delivered in November 2017.   

Current Programme status

Report Date RAG
October 2019 GREEN

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