WORK
02 - THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
How I strategised to migrate legacy content from chaos to responsive clarity…
Re-designing a Fragmented Digital Ecosystem through Strategic UX Leadership
WORK
01 - THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
UX LEADERSHIP, STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT, CONTENT DESIGN, INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
UX STRATEGY, SERVICE DESIGN, PRODUCT DESIGN
WORK
01- THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Re-designing a Fragmented Digital Ecosystem through Strategic UX Leadership
UX Strategy, Service Design, Product Design
WORK
WORK
01 - THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Re-designing a Fragmented Digital Ecosystem through Strategic UX Leadership
Re-designing a Fragmented Digital Ecosystem through Strategic UX Leadership
UX STRATEGY, SERVICE DESIGN, PRODUCT DESIGN
+35%
READABILITY
-42%
TASK EFFICENCY
4.6/5
USER SATISFACTION
Summary
Summary
Proposed and secured a content overhaul project, and designed content to meets user needs.
The Core Team: Web Design/Content Lead/Myself, Web coordinator. Reporting to the Head of IT Services in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Timeline: 4.5 months
Proposed and secured a content overhaul project, and designed content to meets user needs.
The Core Team: Web Design/Content Lead/Myself, Web coordinator. Reporting to the Head of IT Services in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Timeline: 4.5 months
Winning the Pitch: I secured a high-profile project competing with 7 internal IT teams, to re-design the Student and Staff Web Portal.
I achieved this by using my advanced skills in UX strategy and design, presenting compelling concepts informed by insights from initial user research which I had conducted.
The Core Team: UX Lead/Myself, Product Manager, Senior Developer(seconded for the project 2 days a week), reporting to the Head of IT Services in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
The Problem: The legacy university portal had become almost obsolete from extreme under-utilisation. Students, Academics and Staff were using all other systems and bypassing the service, because it provided no direct functional utility and completely lacked dashboard customisation. Moreover, the disjointed login systems created frustrations, while siloed departments lobbied to develop widgets which were unverified.
The Strategy: As UX Lead, I established a unified Value Proposition to shift stakeholders from a feature-adding mindset to a task-focused and time-saving mindset. I implemented a strict MoSCoW framework during discovery to halt early feature creep, instituted a centralised Single Sign-On (SSO) architecture, created a solution to the multi-channel content problem by defining 3 archetypes, and validated the layout through an A/B usability testing protocol.
The Impact: Consolidated logins into one secure SSO portal, maintained a lean launch footprint, and drove a 300% increase in daily active user (DAU) engagement by creating content to serve 3 target audiences.
The Problem
The Problem
Faculty leadership planned to migrate legacy content by 'Copy & Paste' method into the newly designed responsive website templates. I needed to intervene to avoid cognitive bloat and decrease in usability.
I made a formal recommendation to the Head of IT Services in the faculty and presented heuristics and UX strategy.
Faculty leadership planned to migrate legacy content by 'Copy & Paste' method into the newly designed responsive website templates. I needed to intervene to avoid cognitive bloat and decrease in usability.
I made a formal recommendation to the Head of IT Services in the faculty and presented heuristics and UX strategy.
The Goal
The Goal
Defining Success…
Defining Success…
xxx
xxx
The Challenge
The Challenge
The legacy university site was a graveyard of unformatted and undifferentiated chaos, academics and staff routinely pasted content from Word documents, and there was legacy bloat.
Wthout an existing Content Strategy, Content lacked purpose as did not meet user needs and align with business goals. Usability was poor, causing issues frustrations with findability and cognitive overload.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
The legacy university site was a graveyard of unformatted and undifferentiated chaos, academics and staff routinely pasted content from Word documents, and there was legacy bloat.
Wthout an existing Content Strategy, Content lacked purpose as did not meet user needs and align with business goals. Usability was poor, causing issues frustrations with findability and cognitive overload.
Stakeholder Mapping
UX Strategy - Roadmap
The Process
The Process
Cognitive overload - Students, and faculty staff struggled to find critical information because pages lacked visual hierarchy, scannability, and responsive formatting.
Leading the team: Owned the design process and was responsible for scoping the project and resources.
With senior accountability, I was involved in the hiring process to onboard two content designers, establishing our team's workflows, tools, and leading design meetings.
Technical skills: Applied CSS skills by implementing editable areas for content.
Quality assurance: Produced guidelines for content designers which included the University style guides.
Editorial gatekeeper: Supervised designers and supported them with technical issues.
Drove the project using Agile methods, implemented tasks in Sprints of two weeks.
I established a clear content pipeline. I delegated specific site sections to the two content designers based on their strengths, ensuring balanced workloads and clear deadlines for tasks.
Reducing Friction by creating clear, purposeful content.
Content Refactoring: It was my priority to have the team work on the following tasks:
Implementing clear heading hierarchies (H1, H2, H3).
Chunking long pages of text, breaking text into bulleted lists, accordions, and call-out boxes.
Using natural language to improve readability.
Call to Actions(CTA) clear and consistent.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
Cognitive overload - Students, and faculty staff struggled to find critical information because pages lacked visual hierarchy, scannability, and responsive formatting.
Leading the team: Owned the design process and was responsible for scoping the project and resources.
With senior accountability, I was involved in the hiring process to onboard two content designers, establishing our team's workflows, tools, and leading design meetings.
Technical skills: Applied CSS skills by implementing editable areas for content.
Quality assurance: Produced guidelines for content designers which included the University style guides.
Editorial gatekeeper: Supervised designers and supported them with technical issues.
Drove the project using Agile methods, implemented tasks in Sprints of two weeks.
I established a clear content pipeline. I delegated specific site sections to the two content designers based on their strengths, ensuring balanced workloads and clear deadlines for tasks.
Reducing Friction by creating clear, purposeful content.
Content Refactoring: It was my priority to have the team work on the following tasks:
Implementing clear heading hierarchies (H1, H2, H3).
Chunking long pages of text, breaking text into bulleted lists, accordions, and call-out boxes.
Using natural language to improve readability.
Call to Actions(CTA) clear and consistent.
User Flows
User Flows
After conducting a Heuristic Evaluation, an Audit, and conducting User Research. I was able to gather the data and create flows to meet user needs.
This was a complex project, involving 4 school faculty websites, it involved collaborating with stakeholders to become familiar with the content.
I designed sessions with key stakeholders of each school, and ran a Card Sorting exercise, to identify and agree a coherent flow, to meet the needs of each school. Collectively, we worked on creating a process which was user-centric, which allowed users to access the right information they needed at the right point in their journey.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
After conducting a Heuristic Evaluation, an Audit, and conducting User Research. I was able to gather the data and create flows to meet user needs.
This was a complex project, involving 4 school faculty websites, it involved collaborating with stakeholders to become familiar with the content.
I designed sessions with key stakeholders of each school, and ran a Card Sorting exercise, to identify and agree a coherent flow, to meet the needs of each school. Collectively, we worked on creating a process which was user-centric, which allowed users to access the right information they needed at the right point in their journey.
New Information Architecture
New Information Architecture
I planned and facilitated a Tree Testing for key Stakeholders design a coherent Information Architecture.
From the User Flows, I was able to create a simplified and intuitive structure, categorising and designing content to improve findability and reduce friction. This addressed the user experience difficulties with the existing information structure.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
I planned and facilitated a Tree Testing for key Stakeholders design a coherent Information Architecture.
From the User Flows, I was able to create a simplified and intuitive structure, categorising and designing content to improve findability and reduce friction. This addressed the user experience difficulties with the existing information structure.
Stakeholder Push-back:
"How will anyone find the content if it’s all been moved.”
"All my work will be lost in the migration if not all publicly available.”
My Solution:
I gained agreement on 'Archive' NOT 'Delete' as this was becoming a major source of concern for schools in the faculty.
Stakeholder Push-back:
"The students want all the information on the website.”
My Solution:
I used the 'Chop and Chunk' method and executed this process on hundreds of A4 pages of dense unformatted content, which had no focus. With effective content design, we reduced pages by 60% removing academic jargon and passive voice.
Stakeholder Push-back:
“My profile shows my personality, and I want my students to see that.”
My Solution:
I advised the academics that a professional slimmed down version was more suitable for a public presence as our Research Institutes and Business Partners would not need the same information as students. And I gained agreement on moving the deep-dive profiles to the new Student and Staff Portal.
Project Management
Project Management
The most time-consuming phase of the project was the Stakeholder negotiations, which I managed complicated negotiations and achieved stakeholder buy-in, drove the project to deadline,
Stakeholder Communication: Held meetings with stakeholders and achieved signed agreements on plans to technically hold the legacy content;
Upward Reporting: I maintained a bi-weekly dashboard for the Head of IT, tracking migration progress, accessibility compliance scores, and launch timelines.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
The most time-consuming phase of the project was the Stakeholder negotiations, which I managed complicated negotiations and achieved stakeholder buy-in, drove the project to deadline,
Stakeholder Communication: Held meetings with stakeholders and achieved signed agreements on plans to technically hold the legacy content;
Upward Reporting: I maintained a bi-weekly dashboard for the Head of IT, tracking migration progress, accessibility compliance scores, and launch timelines.
User Testing - High Fidelity
User Testing - High Fidelity
I developed a Beta version of the website and used that as the Hi-fid prototype, then designed tasks.
I led 2 user testing sessions, Group 1 -12 Students, Group 2 - 12 Academics & Staff. The design team observed users completing set tasks and took notes.
Tested for the following:
Group 1
A) If users understood where to find content relating to courses.
B) How simple it was for users to find an academics’ contact information, for purpose of improving digital communication between students and staff.
C) How effective the FAQ content was, as wanted to reduce calls to Admin.
Group 2
D) If users understood where to find a particular Research study
E) How simple it was for users to find academic profiles
F) How effective the FAQ content was, as wanted to reduce calls to Admin.
Results validated the content design, and the only comment was that participants wanted more FAQ information. This helped me review the FAQ’s and iterate to improve the content design.
Post-test inquiries
As part of the content design, I worked to simplify language using natural language to decrease time on task and wanted to understand if clear language helped participants find information quicker. Feedback suggested that they didn’t need to think much and that they completed the task quickly, and language was simple, so they didn’t experience any barriers. When asked about consistency of Headings and finding content (IA) many stated that “it all made sense” and “It was as they expected”. I believe that my knowledge in understanding user mental models and the research undertaken and workflows supported users’ positive user experience. I achieved great UX as the design was validated by these tests.
Insights from post-test inquiries validated that there were significant improvements to content and usability. Students commented that content was easy to find and there were less inconsistencies and no duplicated content which eliminated frustrations.
As part of the core team, I strategised a Product Roadmap with the Product Manager, then met with the Head of IT in EPS to finalise the Business Model and define the Objective Key Results(OKRs) for the project.
I created a high-level Value Proposition, which I was to finalise after synthesising all the user research.
User Architecture - Personas
After conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with Staff (8), Academics (4), Students (3), I shadowed 3 staff members and conducted a task analysis to gain insights relating to their workflow and help me to align the new design to the existing user mental model. Using this method helped me understand the users’ frustrations and wishes for a new system and validated customer/user experiences stated in the student and staff university survey.
I analyised and synthesised the data using a Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke), to find themes which I then used to create concepts and understand the user and design a solution to meet their needs.
3 behavioural archetypes identified by synthesising data from mixed-methods research
Navigation Taxonomy:
From user research I identified 3 primary target users with distinct requirements. It was clear to me that the system needed to be a Persona-Driven portal.
I developed a Beta version of the website and used that as the Hi-fid prototype, then designed tasks.
I led 2 user testing sessions, Group 1 -12 Students, Group 2 - 12 Academics & Staff. The design team observed users completing set tasks and took notes.
Tested for the following:
Group 1
A) If users understood where to find content relating to courses.
B) How simple it was for users to find an academics’ contact information, for purpose of improving digital communication between students and staff.
C) How effective the FAQ content was, as wanted to reduce calls to Admin.
Group 2
D) If users understood where to find a particular Research study
E) How simple it was for users to find academic profiles
F) How effective the FAQ content was, as wanted to reduce calls to Admin.
Results validated the content design, and the only comment was that participants wanted more FAQ information. This helped me review the FAQ’s and iterate to improve the content design.
Post-test inquiries
As part of the content design, I worked to simplify language using natural language to decrease time on task and wanted to understand if clear language helped participants find information quicker. Feedback suggested that they didn’t need to think much and that they completed the task quickly, and language was simple, so they didn’t experience any barriers. When asked about consistency of Headings and finding content (IA) many stated that “it all made sense” and “It was as they expected”. I believe that my knowledge in understanding user mental models and the research undertaken and workflows supported users’ positive user experience. I achieved great UX as the design was validated by these tests.
Insights from post-test inquiries validated that there were significant improvements to content and usability. Students commented that content was easy to find and there were less inconsistencies and no duplicated content which eliminated frustrations.
Impact
The team transformed dense, long pages into scannable, responsive web layouts, which increased usability.
Reduced Cognitive Load: Transformed 1600 legacy pages into [1200] clean, responsive, and highly scannable web pages (a 25% reduction in total page count/bloat).
Universal Accessibility: Achieved 100% compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards across the redesigned sections.
Operational Efficiency: Established a repeatable, scalable content migration and style guide for future university web projects.
Leadership Success: Successfully onboarded, mentored, and led a high-performing content team that delivered the project on time
Directed large groups in educational setting, trained staff at The University of Manchester and Coached at Secondary Schools.
Collaborative leader
To avoid over committing by using prioritisation methods such as MoSCow.
Supervised a team of 4 designers, Senior responsibilities including hiring and project management.
Agile methods used, in two week sprints. Regularly hold crits, and used active listening to understand and resolve blockers.
Relections
I led stakeholder management across faculty leadership, strengthening my negotiation skills to secure alignment on content reduction. By strategically reframing the initiative from "Deleting Content" to "Archiving Content," I successfully mitigated pushback and gained buy-in to slim down site content, which increased usability.
(As Lead Web Designer, I needed to achieve good usability by managing complexity, scale and people to transform chaotic content into accessible, responsive templates.
This project followed on from the 9 month university re-design project, where I collaborated with the central team in conducting user research, which involved mixed-methods approach to gather data from students and staff.
Using the existing data and my skills in Content Design, I was confident in project managing and implementing and delivering multiple websites to meet user needs.
Directed large groups in educational setting, trained staff at The University of Manchester and Coached at Secondary Schools.
Collaborative leader
To avoid over committing by using prioritisation methods such as MoSCow.
Supervised a team of 4 designers, Senior responsibilities including hiring and project management.
Agile methods used, in two week sprints. Regularly hold crits, and used active listening to understand and resolve blockers.