Category: Work
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Find your dream job by letting go of the title
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Every discipline feels hard done by in the current climate. But looking beyond your own discipline could help you get your next role.
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Reflecting on two years as a user experience consultant; looking ahead to working on structured content
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The latest chapter in my career has closed, as I have found an incredibly exciting new opportunity. But the past couple of years have given me a lot to reflect on.
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Getting to the root causes of usability errors and accessibility problems
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Perception–Cognition–Action (PCA) analysis is a method of uncovering the root causes of usability errors and accessibility challenges in systems. Read my article to learn more, or come to this week’s UX Edinburgh meetup to hear me speak about it.
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Speaking at UX Healthcare conference in April
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I will be speaking at the UX Healthcare conference in London on Friday 12 April. Book now to learn about using Perception-Cognition-Action analysis to improve accessibility and outcomes in healthcare products.
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12 years in higher education web and user experience management
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Today I have started a new job. But while I’m looking forward, I have also been reflecting, as this moment marks my first real move away from higher education. Despite the differing natures of the three organisations I worked for, there were many parallels across them.
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Nudge in user experience — Website and Communications Blog
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Over the summer my user experience team at the University of Edinburgh had the wonderful opportunity to work with a Behavioural Insights (Nudge) Intern. There are lots of parallels between behavioural science and human-centred approaches. Nudge models give us the opportunity to bring an extra level of formality to our approaches. Working with a behavioural […]
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From personas to behaviour modes — Website and Communications Blog
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This post on my team’s blog outlines why and how we have moved away from using personas to behavioural archetypes. Existing personas had served the team well for over 10 years. But with our work to reimagine the future of our web services, and our attention turning to the development of a new Web Publishing […]
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Half a year on parental leave with a broken ankle
Becoming a parent is a huge privilege. But it’s no secret that it’s also hard work. You don’t plan to break your ankle during the first year of your child’s life.
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Could you be our nudge intern?
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We have a fascinating opportunity for a University of Edinburgh undergraduate student to join our team as an intern this summer. The job has a cool title: nudge intern.
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UX in universities — UX Soup
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I have been interviewed for the podcast UX Soup. The host Chris Schreiner was interested in the User Experience Service’s work at the University of Edinburgh. He spoke with me about: how the consultancy model works in a higher education context the history of our service the projects we get involved with the methodologies we […]
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I return to work regularly today for the first time in almost 25 weeks
I return to work regularly today for the first time in almost 25 weeks
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I’ve broken my ankle
At the weekend I broke my ankle while playing bubble football on a stag do.
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Demonstrating the impact of human-centred approaches — Further reflections from the UCD Gathering conference — Website and Communications Blog
The second of my two posts on my work team’s blog about UCD Gathering, the remote conference I attended in October. This blog post covers the third theme I wanted to highlight: how we can better demonstrate the business impact of human-centred approaches.
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Service design special — UX Glasgow
I will be speaking at next week’s UX Glasgow meetup, which is a service design special coinciding with Services Week.
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From 40 sets of ideas to one in 20 minutes — A collaboration experiment with the Web Publishing Community — Website and Communications Blog
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Here’s another post I published to my team’s blog over the summer and forgot to link to from here. Back in June, I ran an experiment in mass remote collaboration at our Web Publishing Community. This was, of course, at the height of lockdown, as we were adapting to the new reality of a prolonged […]
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A service design approach to improving student experience
Slides from my UCD Gathering talk on Thursday 15 October 2020, about the work we’ve been doing at the University of Edinburgh to improve the experience of students and staff working with course materials digitally.
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Meeting the challenges of collaborating remotely — Website and Communications Blog
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I realised that while the summer got pretty busy for us, there are a few work blog posts that I haven’t cross-posted here yet. So I will drip-feed them here over the next little while. This first one is from July, where I outlined some of the lessons we have been learning from getting collaborative […]
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Speaking at UCD Gathering
I’m pleased to be speaking at UCD Gathering, a new virtual conference taking place on 15 and 16 October, about my team’s service design approach to improving the way staff use our virtual learning environment to better meet students’ needs.
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Struggling with vision loss — Stewart Lamb Cromar — Interactive Content
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My colleague Stewart Lamb Cromar has written about how a recent deterioration in his vision has impacted his work, and highlights the importance of our ongoing work around accessibility.
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We’re hiring a Senior Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog
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The University of Edinburgh Website and Communications team is hiring a Senior Content Designer. Come and join my team! If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we want to hear from you. Read the blog post to learn more about the position and how to apply.
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Understanding what students really need from a virtual learning environment — presented at UX Glasgow virtual meetup
This week I presented to the UX Glasgow community about our user research into the needs of students and staff working with course materials digitally at the University of Edinburgh. It was my first real experience of presenting to a live audience remotely.
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Adapting to the new normal
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One of the (many) strange features of the coronavirus outbreak is that in many ways I feel busier than I have ever been. It is almost three weeks since I was last in my office, yet I haven’t had the time to commit my thoughts to writing.
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View from Service Design in Government 2020
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Last week I attended the Service Design in Government conference, held here in Edinburgh. It was a hugely thought-provoking event. Almost every session I attended was excellent, sparking new ideas and thoughts that I am still getting to grips with almost a week on.
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Perks of the job. Today I had a short impromptu tour of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh on a crisp sunny winter’s morning.
Perks of the job. Today I had a short impromptu tour of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh on a crisp sunny winter’s morning.
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Join our team as a Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog
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Come and work with our team! We are looking for three experienced Content Designers to join the University of Edinburgh’s Website and Communications team as we embark on major projects to launch our new web publishing platform and services. If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we […]
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Accessible polling cards: Keeping it low-tech — Lizzie Cass-Maran — Website and Communications Blog
How do you make participation in workshops and training sessions as accessible as possible? My colleague Lizzie Cass-Maran has created these low-tech voting cards (using letters, colours and shapes to include as many people as possible) that are easy to make yourself — and a lot less fiddly than some of the technology solutions out […]
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I’ll be speaking at UX Scotland 2020
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The session will outline the comprehensive programme of user research the University of Edinburgh’s User Experience Service conducted on behalf of the Learn Foundations project. It will show how, as the project went along, we adopted a service design approach in order to better meet the needs of both students and staff.
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We’re looking for a PhD student intern to work with us next year. This is an exciting time to join our team, and an opportunity to help us improve high-profile web services like MyEd and the University website.
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We’re looking for a University of Edinburgh PhD student intern to work with us next year. This is an exciting time to join the Website and Communications team, and an opportunity to help us improve high-profile web services like MyEd and the University website. Take a look!
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I’ll be speaking at the next IxDA Scotland community meetup about our user research with the Learn Foundations project
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I’ll be speaking at the next IxDA Scotland community meetup about our user research with the Learn Foundations project. Duncan’s talk will take us through how the University of Edinburgh’s User Experience Service has undertaken a comprehensive programme of user research supporting a project aimed at improving students’ experience accessing course materials digitally. Find out […]
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User experience lessons from a university dumping Blackboard
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One university got so frustrated with Blackboard they finally ditched it. But this experience highlights a big problem with almost all enterprise software.
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A service design approach to Learn Foundations — Website and Communications Blog
My final blog post about our user research for the Learn Foundations project, outlining how our service design approach has left the University of Edinburgh in a stronger position to understand how we can really improve services for students.
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Contextual enquiry with members of staff working with course materials digitally — Website and Communications Blog
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As part of our comprehensive programme of user research in support of the Learn Foundations project, the User Experience Service has conducted contextual enquiry to better understand the contexts and needs of staff members working with Learn. This blog post summarises our findings.
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Understanding design better by looking from different levels of magnification — Nicola Dobiecka — Website and Communications Blog
My colleague Nicola Dobiecka wrote this brilliant blog post about how designers need to take different approaches depending on the level they are working at. It builds on Jared Spool’s analogy with Charles and Ray Eames’ classic film Powers of Ten. Essentially, colleagues at different levels of the organisation have different perspectives. All valid, but […]
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Usability testing has helped us understand how staff using Learn can be better supported — Website and Communications Blog
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Here’s what happened when we ran usability testing with staff members using Learn for the first time. From four videos we found 20 usability issues, and a wide variety of strategies to complete the same basic tasks.
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First click tests — building up the elements of user experience for Learn Foundations — Website and Communications Blog
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We had developed an information architecture and tree tests as part of our programme of user research for Learn Foundations. The next step was to use first click tests to pit the new template against existing courses. The latest post in my series for the Website and Communications blog about our user research work around […]
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Understanding what students really need from a virtual learning environment
Slides from my Edinburgh UX meetup talk on Monday 2 September 2019, about the user research we have been conducting around the needs of students and staff working with course materials digitally at the University of Edinburgh. See the more detailed blog posts about this project over at the Website and Communications team blog.
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Developing service design capability: reflections on studying with the Service Design Academy — Website and Communications Blog
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This year I have had the fantastic opportunity to study with the Service Design Academy. This intensive course in service design has given me hands-on experience in new techniques. This blog post summarises my experience.
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I’m doing a couple of talks this week. They are both about the user research we’ve been doing for the Learn Foundations project
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I’m doing a couple of talks this week. They are both about the user research we’ve been doing for the Learn Foundations project. This evening I will be presenting at the Edinburgh UX monthly meetup. It’s a friendly meetup and it’s free, so do come along if you’re interested. Then on Wednesday I’ll be presenting […]
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Using tree tests to refine an information architecture — Website and Communications Blog
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After completing the top tasks survey and the card sort as part of the Learn Foundations project, our next step was to create a prototype information architecture and test it.
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Card sorting has informed a new information architecture for Learn courses — Website and Communications Blog
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How we used card sorting to help us devise a consistent information architecture for Learn VLE courses at the University of Edinburgh. 775 students participated in the study — and no two students submitted the same card sort. This highlights the great challenge faced by the Learn Foundations project in attempting to create a more […]
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The one thing about your spouse’s personality that really affects your career — Andrew O’Connell — Harvard Business Review
It has been found that having a conscientious spouse helps lead to an increase in income, number of promotions and job satisfaction. Why? First, conscientious spouses handle a lot of household tasks, freeing employees to concentrate on work (“When you can depend on someone, it takes pressure off of you,” Solomon told me). Or, put […]
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Creating the perfect UX workshop bag — @kyecass — UX Collective
✔️ Love stationery ✔️ Love workshops This is a great guide to workshop essentials. I’m impressed that this kit contains a wider variety of materials, and yet seems so much smaller than the workshop bag we use at work. Maybe we rely too much on mountains of sticky notes! I’d be tempted to add planning […]
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Top tasks surveys have identified what really matters to students using Learn — Website and Communications Blog
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As part of our programme of user research in support of the Learn Foundations project, we have carried out a top tasks survey to understand what students need when accessing course materials online. What we found was that students value three items much more than everything else. Those items are all to do with lectures. […]
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The elements of a better user experience in Learn — Website and Communications Blog
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As part of the Learn Foundations project, we have carried out a programme of quantitative research to ensure a user-centred approach to solution development. The Learn Foundations project team wanted to develop a new template using a user-centred approach. This template would be designed to introduce more consistency between different courses in Learn. But it […]
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Managing your professional decline
It is suggested that a decline in our careers is inevitable, and comes earlier than you might expect. So what should we do about it?
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Interviews with students to understand users’ needs and contexts around Learn — Website and Communications Blog
Summarising the key findings from a set of user interviews I conducted with students on their needs around accessing course materials digitally. Just one of the strands of the Learn Foundations project, which I still have much more to write about. After analysing and synthesising the insights gathered through the interviews, we built up a […]
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Khoi Vinh on how his blog amplified his work and career — Own Your Content
An interview with Khoi Vinh on the benefits of blogging. Blogging has always been pivotal to my career. When I was offered my first ‘proper’ job as a web editor at the University of St Andrews, I only really had my blog to speak for. Yet it was enough to get my name out there, and […]
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Encouraging self-service through improving content at the University of Edinburgh — Lauren Tormey — GatherContent
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My awesome colleague Lauren Tormey wrote this blog post about a brilliant project she’s been involved in. She has been collaborating with our Information Services Helpline to reduce unnecessary support calls by iteratively improving content with a regular cycle of usability testing. Over two summers, we had done work to improve content related to getting […]
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User research into the needs of students and staff using Learn — Website and Communications Blog
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Since September, my main focus at work has been to carry out a comprehensive programme of user research for a project aiming to improve services surrounding Blackboard Learn, the University of Edinburgh’s main virtual learning environment. I wrote this blog post providing a high-level overview of all the work that’s taken place this academic year. […]
