Student Welcome

The ask

In order to be a leader in the HE industry, Universities need to attract and retain the best talent. However, the on-boarding and inducting of new students is not always an easy and successful process. They usually get lost in a see of paperwork and unglamorous tasks, while leaving aside a warmer welcome that highlights the feeling of belonging to a University right from the start.

Campus Life asked us to build a comprehensive welcoming experience that would combine the provision of the right information and support to new students from day one.

Campus Life chose us as their long-term partner to develop a digital identity, UX patterns, consistent user interfaces, and visual design for web, app, newsletters and social channels—all in close collaboration with a new internal team. The aim: to improve the Student onboarding journey, resulting in higher student satisfaction.

Ability to publish on multiple devices 

A centralised hub managing content

Our Approach

In order to create the best digital products, we first had to break free from existing assumptions. Instead of combining the wish-lists of the internal stakeholders, we guided the team on how to focus on the true needs of the students by analysing behaviour. This resulted in clear communication, a goal-driven approach, and a personalised offering of services. Agile workflows and a new technology framework allow for fast prototyping and rapid improvement of the products, and the long beta period allows the team to learn in increments and zoom in on true user needs.

By making new students feel welcome, this will enhance loyalty and retention and would be reflected in the students sense of belonging, happiness and safety.

The design sprint

Equipped with user feedback and metrics, we moved forward with a design sprint to test our assumptions and new solutions. After a few rounds of design sprint activities and ideations, we came up with a prototype that addressed many of the questions and concerns that were brought up in the interviews. The new solution was a simpler, more streamlined version of the student induction. The team felt confident in it, and it performed well in the usability testing sessions at the end of the sprint.

We developed a smooth digital experience through the use of a “welcome kit” admin platform and front end site, which provided the right balance between supplying information on surviving at University and sending welcome messages to make them feel at home from day one. The platform provided the information split into ‘bite-sized’ sections, making them easy to digest. We also incorporated video content and crisp graphics into the designs to make them as clear as possible.

The aim is to improve the complete induction journey to welcome new students.

A guided, efficient platform

The outcome of the first design sprint was incredibly successful. The prototype and business idea was well received. We confidently moved forward knowing that we conducted an initial round of user testing. We started to build out and refine wireframes for each of the designed administrative user flows.

Meaningful impact

The platform has enabled Universities to create and deploy bespoke content to multiple intakes. Serving 50,000 students per year, delivering welcome information across demographics and locales gives flexibility, control and content performance, unlike any previous induction methods.

• Platform-agnostic publishing 
• Streamlined content delivery
• Superior asset management workflows
• Easy integration with third-parties