The approach
During initial scoping, I discovered internally a partial understanding of the student journey at a localised level. But this lacked broader perspective beyond individual department responsibilities. To address this, my approach was to challenge internal norms and beliefs, focusing on the authentic experience of students by students moving to the University of York.
My objective was to capture an unfiltered representation of what our typical student really experienced. What are they thinking, feeling, and doing. Additionally, I aimed to cultivate organisational empathy for the diverse student groups we serve. Over a span of four weeks, we deploying ethnographic techniques to immerse ourselves in their world. Uncovering the underlying motivations behind their actions. This complemented a duplicate study, covering competitor institutions at the same time. Allowing us benchmark York against similar campus based institutions.
Problem 1
Knowledge of the student experience was localised and patchy throughout. Support services which had the most direct contact with students had little awareness of what occurred before a student reaches them, or what occurs afterwards.
Problem 2
Protectionist behaviour was prevalent throughout the working environment. The culture wasn’t conducive to progressive transformational change. A need for a singular, non-biased objective overview of the as is experience unfiltered appeared necessary.
Problem 3
It was believed good student engagement and feedback was occurring. Closer inspection found a limited feedback loop. A singular methodology, the questionnaire was the default approach for the past 5 years further compounded by a declining completion rate of less than 10% of total target population. Departments had good, although limited attitudinal insight representation. But what all departments shared in common was a lack of depth of real understanding of ‘why’ behind the data insight collected.
Diary Study
4 week study covering undergraduate, postgraduate and competitor institutions based in the UK (excluding satellite locations)
Observation
Direct observation of moving in weekend processes followed by continuous observation of college, student union and all freshers events.
Fly on the wall
Roaming researchers across the Undergraduate and Postgraduate moving in weekend.
Interviews
Engagement with key stakeholders (internal & external) throughout the study period
Secondary Research
Executed extensive desk research covering the onboarding university process coupled with past research data.
Observation
Observation offered me a valuable opportunity to fully immerse myself in the moving-in weekend alongside the students, providing insights crucial for our research. We discovered the quality of the moving-in experience was depended on the allocation of one of the 12 halls of residence (colleges) assigned.
One aspect I hadn’t initially considered, revealed through observation, was the impact of parking availability and how this set the tone on initial impressions. Colleges with designated parking bays boasted dedicated moving in teams ready to assist new arrivals from the moment they stepped out of their vehicles. However, a hidden minority forced to park on adjacent roads due to a lack of available parking didn’t receive any such support, leading to a less than ideal welcome after a long journey from across the country.
Diary study
The study was big, very big. My focus was collecting high quality qualitative data rich findings throughout. Taking the diary study alone, we captured more than 825+ individual images sent by our participants. With over 2000+ messages between discussions with our research team.
It actually started to create an unexpected problems. An overwhelming amount of data. Recognising the need for agility, I made two key adjustments mid-study. First, I modified the diary study participation length for some involved, focusing on participants yielding high research value. Second, I introduced a prioritisation matrix to categorise data concurrently with collection. This approach enabled us to manage the data volume effectively without compromising delivery deadlines. As a result, I could swiftly identify and showcase crucial areas for improvement after study completion.
825+
Images
150+
Videos
2000+
Messages
70+
Audio recordings
Analysis & Idea Generation
I used affinity mapping to bring the various data sources together. As themes emerged, this went into a prioritisation matrix to show the most crucial areas for improvement and associated risks. I then translated this into research visualisation. One example was user journey mapping, allowing me to deliver powerful storytelling around the first-hand experience, highlighting key problem areas and potential costs associated with them (monetary and time).
Affinity Mapping
Used to make data non-linear, clustered into groups to identify emergent themes to take forward.
User Journey Mapping
Used to articulate empathy, pain points and opportunity areas across the team, and how the chronological sequence of events influences experience outputs.
Personas
Used to build understanding of user groups and cluster similarities into shareable persona profiles covering key attributes to build empathy and understanding.
Stakeholder Mapping
Used to understand the landscape, capturing primary, secondary and third-party groups to engage, keep informed and be aware of.
Making sense of our data
To understand the core tribes, I led the team in Affinity Mapping (Affinity Diagramming). The intent was to bring multiple data sources together (research triangulation) to extract meaning through clusters of similarity. It’s a preferred technique of mine because it makes the data non-linear and allows the team to look at the data objectively, with multiple data sources for a more rounded, holistic overview. It kept us grounded in the data with a clear breadcrumb trail of evidence back to the original source.
Affinity mapping detail — left
Replace with original image
Building our personas
Using empathy maps and affinity mapping outputs, we started to cluster typical traits together into hypothetical persona groups to represent their motivations, pain points and needs.
User Journey maps
I mapped out the typical student experience for undergraduate home students alongside an international undergraduate / postgraduate journey. This created two distinct As-is journey maps with four defining stages:
Preparing & Packing
Moving in & Settling In
New experiences & making friends
Establishing routines & Academic life
This investigation brought to light that the experience for international students didn’t meet the expected standard. The emotions swim-lane highlighted specific points of friction, such as international students frequently arriving at unpredictable times, often late at night. It was discovered that students arrived at different locations on campus, as there was no central drop-off zone available. Consequently, they were left to navigate to their accommodation in an unfamiliar environment. Compounding the issue, if their arrival occurred outside the traditional 9–5 opening hours, reception might be closed. This situation left students unable to access their rooms and unsure of the next steps to take.
Insights
After employing various research techniques and analysing the gathered data, I identified and grouped the most prominent insights. A concurrent theme emerged around ‘I have a problem’ from the student's point of view.
Student ‘I have a problem’
Multitude of Channels for Problem Resolution
Students had access to multiple channels to address their issues, but they struggled to determine the initial step due to conflicting information from various sources.
Internal Silos and Fragmented Journey
Internal silos within the organisation contributed to a fragmented journey for students, resulting in complexity even for simple tasks. This fragmentation hindered the delivery and management of essential services.
Uncovering Student Experience
Through our research, we gained unprecedented insights into how students truly experienced everyday services, shedding light on areas for improvement like never before.
Complexity Hindering Service Delivery
The complexity of the student journey posed challenges for the delivery and control of vital services, highlighting the need for streamlined processes and improved communication channels.
The project sponsor expected the team to identify key actionable problems by the end of the discovery work. I managed to successfully drip-feed information throughout the project, thus managing expectations as I presented frequent updates to our senior stakeholders.
Once in a position to communicate the findings, we engaged in comprehensive socialisation efforts across the entire university. This encompassed in-person showcase events as well as over 14 online group presentations. Our audience included various departments, affiliations such as student unions and representatives, and all members of the vice-chancellor board. The goal was to ensure that every team, regardless of their role or responsibility, gained an accurate understanding of the lived student onboarding experience.
This effort yielded valuable outcomes, including the identification of a range of user problems to solve and the alignment of business goals. By disseminating our findings widely, we fostered a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities surrounding the onboarding process, facilitating collaboration and driving initiatives for improvement as teams turned our discovery work into actionable solutions and a comprehensive backlog of prioritised work.
Key results
The 2024/25 merger of YUSU & GSA into one student union. Representing undergraduate & postgraduate students together
Why? Our project found that postgraduate students were unaware of the distinction between unions. With low awareness of GSA and postgraduates primarily using YUSU facilities and support, merging the two unions will better support postgraduate study, allocate appropriate funding, and streamline messaging for more efficient support delivery.
Introduction of Check-In to support student wellbeing and welfare
Why? Our project found the university had no visibility if a student had fallen ill or needed support. Too often, students fell through the cracks without anybody knowing. Check-In allows the university to track learning engagement, swiftly taking preventative action before a small issue turns into a larger crisis.
10
Actionable themes created from research insights
12+
Projects set up based on our research findings to deliver improvements
2
Onboarding experience working groups established, using our findings to guide short, medium and long-term change
300+
Colleagues attended our in-person showcase
800+
Colleagues engaged with our research outputs throughout our socialisation phase
£££
Secured future funding to expand UX research into new areas
3
New projects in the 2023–2026 roadmap to deliver student improvements based on recommended solutions
My involvement as UX Research lead is a real highlight and introduced the university to many firsts. It was the first time they witnessed their products and services working together in the real world, not the idealistic process. It became a watershed moment, with our work setting a benchmark in quality, documentation and asset quality used to facilitate this work.
Legacy was always important for myself, I didn’t want a research report collecting dust in a forgotten folder. It’s why I didn’t do one for this project. Instead I focused on storytelling by visualising the data. I’m proud to see that key materials like our personas and user journey maps have been used universally around the university. But more exciting is they have become living documents. Building upon our discovery work, new teams have taken up the baton, building upon and extending to cover more parts of the user journey. A fitting legacy to one of my most enjoyable research projects to date.
1. Trust in your instinct
It’s important to recognise that no matter how perfectly crafted the research plan may be, it may need to change midway through. Humans are unpredictable. This project really taught me the importance of remaining flexible and trusting my gut, following new emerging paths as they present themselves.
2. Learn when to stop
It’s important to know when you have enough data and have the confidence to change direction. I did this two weeks into the diary study when I recognised we had enough data and continuing at the same scale would have little material difference. I decided to cut the participant numbers, continuing only with those providing most research value. Similar to my first learning, I’ve learnt to trust my research instinct and make the difficult decisions as UX lead.
Project information
Tools
Diary Study tooling
Notion
Maze
Qualtrics
Expertise
Research
Service design