New course pages launched

Course page improvements for more responsive marketing.

Over the past few months we’ve been working with the Digital Team in central Marketing to improve how we promote our courses online.

We’ve updated the design of our course pages based on the design refresh we started last year.

The work has also included migrating our course pages (including information pages, student profiles and module listings) into Site Editor (the university’s content management system).

This will allow us to be more flexible with the designs and introduce more responsive marketing elements.

Usability improvements, such as linking to the course in UCAS, helps to make the application process a bit easier.

Different course page design over the years

User testing

Following on from the user testing we did last year, we did further testing in local schools in January with year 12 students.

The students were able to easily navigate around content and perform key tasks.

“I like that, I think the picture is really good. It seems quite easy already – professional and informative.”

They gave us positive feedback on the general look and feel of the new design. Comments included that it felt more modern and professional compared to the previous version.

“It looks like more of a modern university than some others.”

The new course page offers the opportunity to add more featured content within the flow of the page. This can be targeted at specific times of the year.

Things like Open Day events or generic content around student life, accommodation, virtual tours etc. could be promoted within the course page in future iterations.

Previous year, current year

In the past, after the January UCAS application deadline, the course listing has shown the following year’s courses (those starting next year September).

This can imply that we don’t readily accept late applications. We are now keeping the courses starting in September as our default listing to maximise recruitment for the current year.

It allows a stronger build up towards clearing throughout the year to help bolster the clearing campaign.

A prominent banner has been included to welcome applications past the UCAS January deadline.

Next steps and future improvements

We’re planning continuous improvements to the layout of the different sections on the course page.

Having the content in a modular format in Site Editor, allows us to do this more easily. We’ll be able to provide more targeted and timely marketing across the pages.

We’ll also be looking at integrating clearing in a better way into the course pages and listings.

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