This blog post explores how we in the Digital team at the University of Exeter are being user-led in everything we do to help on our journey to digital transformation, from communications and engagement to product and service development.
Sharing our knowledge at Digital Leaders Week 2024
This month, Helen Cocks, Head of Digital Strategy and Engagement and Scarlett Yeo, Communications Advisor for Digital, presented to 67 attendees from outside of the Higher Education sector on the topic of being truly user-led at Digital Leaders Week 2024. We shared how we are embedding users into our team in different areas to help drive digital transformation.
Digital Leaders Week is the UK’s national week promoting digital transformation across all sectors of the UK. We joined to enable others to learn from our own experiences and what has worked for us so far, and to also drive conversation and opportunities for us to learn from others.
Here are some tips on how you can embed users into your team to help you to deliver.
How do we create value adding experiences?
Our 2030 digital strategy sets out our vision of ‘becoming the most accessible and connected university destination for any user’. One strategic theme enabling us to achieve this is that ‘we want to be at the centre of an individual’s engagement for life’. This theme is all about placing our users at the core of what we do, which will help us meet their ongoing needs. To achieve this, we want to create value adding experiences and grow a highly engaged user base.
Three key problem areas come to mind when exploring how we might achieve this strategic theme:
How can we create value adding experiences?
Everything we do should be service of our users. We need to know that we are truly providing value to our users, so the question of how we might do this is an important one.
Transformation is scary.
Change is new, it’s uncertain and it can be intimidating for users to face, so how can we make it less scary for our users?
Engaging students is hard.
Although lots of our student users are physically in the same space as us, we are competing with lots of other voices when trying to engage them and grab their attention. We’re working to improve the student experience, but it’s only truly beneficial if students are engaged and are ready to experience the results.
To help solve these three key problems, we’re adopting a user-led approach in a few key areas:
User-led communications for digital transformation
An authentic voice is so important when communicating about change. We know from speaking to our users that they are more likely to trust the voice of their peers more than the ‘corporate voice’ – students listen to students.
We hire Student Communications and Engagement Assistants who work within our team alongside their studies to help us to increase engagement with everything we’re doing in digital. They focus on engaging our student users with the work we’re doing to improve the student experience. We empower them to tell the story of what we’re doing in any way they wish to, using their honest thoughts and their choice of channels.
By embedding users into our team we’re able to utilise new channels and reach new audiences, and share authentic messages to our users, from our users. Learn more about our current Student Communications and Engagement Assistant, Deborah and her role.
User-led product development
How can we know that we are truly providing value to our users? Speak to them!
Make change seem less scary by showing that you’ve consulted your users with the change.
Our User Experience Researchers regularly speak to our users, uncovering their needs and wants. We use this insight to develop our products and services. We regularly consult our users to gain feedback and insight which influences future iterations of our products and services and ensures we continue to provide them value. Learn more about the role of our User Experience Researchers.
User-led product/service delivery
Our Digital Hub is here to help students and colleagues at the University of Exeter with using all the digital tools they need during their studies or work at Exeter. The Hub supports the University community through digital transformation by equipping them with the skills they need to utilise digital tools.
Face-to-face and virtual support is provided by our team of Student Ambassadors, who work at the Hub alongside their studies.
This user-led approach to delivering our Digital Hub service means that our students find the Hub more approachable and enables us to better understand the needs of our users and the areas in which they may need support. It also means we get to support our students with undertaking part time work while at university.
How does this user-led approach help us?
For us, a user-led approach to engagement and product and service development/delivery helps us to solve the three key problems we identified earlier in this post.
How can we create value adding experiences? It’s simple – we ask our users! We speak to them regularly to ensure we are continuously providing them value.
And yes, transformation is scary, but being authentic and honest in how you communicate about change really helps to bring people on board and understand the whole picture. Consulting users throughout the transformation means you can be sure that the change will provide them with real value, making them more welcoming to the change.
Engaging students, or any user group, is difficult, but using authentic voices that they relate to helps to truly engage your users.
Helen and I loved sharing what we do at Digital Leaders Week 2024 and have received lots of positive feedback and discussions following the session. Attendees have commented that what we are doing is helping others inform their own approach to transformation, which is what sharing our knowledge is all about!
We’ve shared what we’re doing, but we’d love to learn from others too. Please get in touch with the team to learn more and discuss further.
– Written by Scarlett Yeo, Communications Advisor
Read our 2030 digital strategy.
Learn more about the products and services we’re delivering.