By As a part of getting to know our users, Product Owner, Lauren Marsh and myself attended Undergraduate Open Day at Canterbury (http://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/visit/).
The purpose was to get away from our desks and discover more about our users. We attended various talks and observed the interactions and situations. This helped us gain a broader understanding of prospective students, their parents and their initial experience of Kent.
There was a great buzz on campus as the university of flooded with visitors – prospective students walked around looking slightly bewildered and a little bit nervous, usually with a concerned Mum or Dad in tow. This helped highlight the sensitivity of this audience at this pivotal time in their lives – exciting, anxious and a little bit scary.
Varied talks, from “Life at Kent” and “Student Finance” to school talks on specific courses and information stands helped us learn what is important to this section of our users. Some talks were more popular than others highlighting varied needs for both the general university and specific course/school information.
From the presentations, printed material and signage to friendly volunteers and the state of the campus grounds; everything collectively played its part in convincing and reassuring these anxious visitors that the Kent experience is for them.
It was an informative day which will help us focus on developing better content and new ideas to improve the user experience for this important audience.