Public sector and not for profit

Like all colleges, Ravensbourne College relies on recruiting enough students if it is to stay open. Ravensbourne, affiliated to Sussex University, wanted to recruit more students through its website. We conducted user research to inform the site’s development.

The college website is obviously just one information source a prospect student will use when choosing a college to apply to. To understand the broader context of use, and the stages involved, we interviewed prospective and current students in-depth and in context, and we did usability testing.
 

We identified three stages as prospective students narrow down their candidate college list, decide which one they prefer and finally look for objective validation of their choice:

1. Exploring
2. Deciding
3. Validating.

We found that prospects use a range of information sources at each stage. While the website was useful in the first stage - exploring potential colleges - the site was not helping prospects decide or validate their choices.
 

We suggested how to make the site more usable, and plus how to make it more useful too. We juxtaposed the three decision-stages with these elements of the site:

• content
• information architecture/navigation
• design/functionality.

*Source: SCOP January 2004

“new experience’s research and analysis helped us understand our target audience in a way we never had before. Their representation of the prospect student experience has proved an invaluable tool for formulating our recruitment communications and activities. They opened our eyes to the benefits of conducting in-depth and in-context user experience research.”
Dr Janthia Taylor, Director of Digital Futures, Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication