UCAS

Award-winning university applications

We worked with UCAS to re-design 'Track', the online tool for prospective students to manage their university applications, with amazing results.

  • 95%+ satisfaction rating

  • Mobile usage increased to 50%

The challenge

UCAS Track, used by approx. 700,000 students, needed to be updated in order to provide the best possible user experience in what is a nerve-wracking process for applicants to higher education.

The main objectives were to:

  • Design and optimise the service across desktop, mobile and tablet (native apps and web), optimising the experience for all users
  • Make the service as usable as possible for what is a very difficult (and typically stressful) process for applicants
  • Reduce the number of people ringing the call centre
  • Understand the requirements of students tracking and managing their university applications

Client
UCAS

Sector
Education

What we did

We had extremely tight timeframes but Webcredible responded accordingly. The Webcredible team clearly knows their stuff and were great to work with.

Kate Bevan

Product Owner, UCAS

Our approach

We followed a lean UX approach allowing us to conduct a huge amount of work in a very short period of time and making best use of time and resources.

  1. We kicked off the project with some rapid user research, interviewing a number of students in the process of applying to higher education institutions. We also ran a series of stakeholder workshops to align senior decision makers around a vision for the new portal.

  2. We used these requirements to form the basis of our design strategy, designing key page templates within UCAS's agile development processes. We were based at their offices, to encourage collaboration and regular stakeholder engagement. Our designs aimed to offer the best possible user experience, look great and fit with the UCAS brand and its users' requirements.

  3. We carried out 3 rounds of rapid user testing on different iterations of our design prototypes. After each round of research we analysed our findings and made changes to the designs and user journeys.

  4. We worked alongside UCAS's technical partners throughout, ensuring our design templates and user journeys were properly integrated into the back-end systems.

Early mobile wireframes

Analysis of research findings

Impact & results

Within days, users were sharing their overwhelmingly positive feedback on Twitter, saying the new system is "so easy to use", "making life so much easier" and that it's "16 gazillion times better".

95%+ of users said the tool was easy-to-use in a survey.

Our accelerated approach helped UCAS build an award-winning system quickly and within budget. Mobile usage also increased to 50%, a key objective of the redesign.

  • Mobile usage increased to 50%, a key objective of the redesign
  • The dashboard was personalised with the most relevant content surfaced

  • Mobile usage increased to 50%, a key objective of the redesign

  • The dashboard was personalised with the most relevant content surfaced

Here are some more clients we work with

  • Confused.com

    Complete redesign leads to massive efficiency improvements

  • Weatherbys Bank

    Redesign and build of a modern online banking platform, in line with the digital vision

  • Virgin Trains

    Ongoing partnership leads to countless conversions in the purchasing funnel

  • Heathrow Express

    Multichannel service design ensures optimal customer experience

Like what you see?

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