{"id":3627,"date":"2020-02-27T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T09:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/?p=3627"},"modified":"2020-02-27T09:59:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T09:59:00","slug":"new-course-pages-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/2020\/02\/27\/new-course-pages-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"New course pages launched"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months we\u2019ve been working with the Digital Team in central Marketing to improve how we promote our courses online.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve updated the design of our course pages based on the design refresh we started last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The work has also included migrating our course pages (including information pages, student profiles and module listings) into Site Editor (the university\u2019s content management system).<\/p>\n

This will allow us to be more flexible with the designs and introduce more responsive marketing elements.<\/p>\n

Usability improvements, such as linking to the course in UCAS, helps to make the application process a bit easier.<\/p>\n

\"Different<\/a><\/p>\n

User testing<\/h2>\n

Following on from the user testing we did last year<\/a>, we did further testing in local schools in January with year 12 students.<\/p>\n

The students were able to easily navigate around content and perform key tasks.<\/p>\n

“I like that, I think the picture is really good. It seems quite easy already – professional and informative.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“It looks like more of a modern university than some others.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Previous year, current year<\/h2>\n

In the past, after the January UCAS application deadline, the course listing has shown the following year\u2019s courses (those starting next year September).<\/p>\n

This can imply that we don\u2019t readily accept late applications. We are now keeping the courses starting in September as our default listing to maximise recruitment for the current year.<\/p>\n

It allows a stronger build up towards clearing throughout the year to help bolster the clearing campaign.<\/p>\n

A prominent banner has been included to welcome applications past the UCAS January deadline.<\/p>\n

Next steps and future improvements<\/h2>\n

We’re planning continuous improvements to the layout of the different sections on the course page.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll also be looking at integrating clearing in a better way into the course pages and listings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months we\u2019ve been working with the Digital Team in central Marketing to improve how we promote our courses online. We\u2019ve updated … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17235,"featured_media":3643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1220,79421],"tags":[165784,521],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3627"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3686,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3627\/revisions\/3686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/webdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}