Slides for talk on "Telling the Birkbeck Story: How Customer Journey Mapping Helped Us Develop Our New Approach To Web" by Jane Van de Ban, Birkbeck, University of London and Chris Scott, Headscape See http://iwmw.org/iwmw2018/talks/telling-the-birkbeck-story-how-customer-journey-mapping-helped-us-develop-our-new-approach-to-web/

1. Telling the Birkbeck Story
How Customer Journey Mapping Helped
Us Develop Our New Approach To Web

2. In the beginning

6. Not just pirates

7. Your brand is no longer what
you say it is. It’s what your
users say it is.

8. Many journeys

9. Many touchpoints

10. No big picture

11. The challenge

12. Journey mapping

13. A foundation for user
experience design
Journey mapping

14. Journey mapping
User research
Journey mapping Journey mapping

15. Timeline Timeline

16. Key events
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Key events

17. Key events
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
Key events

18. Key events and stages
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
Initial research Application Offer to enrolment
Key events and stages
Detailed research

21. Feelings
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
Considering PG
study
Open to ideas
What is BBK?
Interested
Information hungry
Details matter
I want information
NOW
Open to ideas
Uncertain about ability to
study
Help me to imagine
I’m there
Information hungry Anxious
Can I afford? How will
I finance?
Frustration with process
If I want help I want it NOW
Motivated
Uncertain
Relief
Excitement
Frustration about
unavailable information
Indecision
Need to plan
Disappointment
Initial research Detailed research Application Offer to enrolment
Feelings

22. Touchpoints
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
Bus and tube
train ads
Web search
3rd party sites
BBK website
Enquiry channels:
Phone, website forms,
social media, email
BBK website - especially
course pages
Emails - BBK
Other people
3rd party sites
Other people
Open evenings
Help channels:
Phone, website forms,
social media, email
Application form
Web - application status
Web - apply for funding
support
Email - request references
Emails - Departments
Help channels:
Phone, email
Web:
Timetables, immigration,
reading lists
Initial research Detailed research Application Offer to enrolment
Touchpoints

23. Birkbeck’s weaknesses
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
What is BBK?
Is BBK even a
university?
Awareness of
BBK’s excellence
is low
Poor speed of enquiry
response Too many emails from
too many different places
Website doesn’t impress
BBK’s evening-based
study, flexibility, financial
support, study skills
training are HIDDEN
Help responsiveness is
often poor - especially at
critical times
Application status
information is poor
Planning information
such as timetables often
too late
Enrolment sometimes
doesn’t happen until after
term has started
Initial research Detailed research Application Offer to enrolment
Weaknesses

24. Birkbeck’s opportunities
Aware of BBK
BBK is an option
Decision to apply
Offer
Enrolment
Rejection
Inclusion in
league tables
News and social
media
Improve enquiry handling
Co-ordinate emailingsImproved web design:
Clear messaging
Improve help
responsiveness
Improve application
tracking
Earlier planning
information
Streamline enrolment
Ad campaigns
Bold imagery
Improve findability
Centralise bursaries and
scholarships information
Study skills webinars
Offer alternatives to
rejected applicants
Initial research Detailed research Application Offer to enrolment
Opportunities
Person-to-person contact is critical - do
more of it, off and on-line

26. Enquiries and help
Application status
Streamlining enrolments
Earlier timetables
Impact

27. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
THE
BIRKBECK
WEBSITE

28. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
ABOUT ME
Jane Van de Ban
Web content manager
• Been at Birkbeck since 2001.
• Have been working on the
Birkbeck web since 2004.
• Have done two Birkbeck MA
degrees.
• Met my partner at Birkbeck.
• Have a Birkbeck tattoo*
*This may not be true.

29. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
ABOUT BIRKBECK
• London’s evening university.
• Founded in 1823, in the Crown and
Anchor Tavern on the
Strand – mission to educate
working men.
• In 1830, Birkbeck became one of the
first colleges to admit women as
students (40 years before Oxford
and Cambridge).
• In 1920, joined University of
London on the understanding that it
would continue to teach in the
evenings.
• In 2012, started offering full-time
UG courses for the first time –
joined UCAS!
• Silver TEF; high scores in REF.

30. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
Our students are amazing:
• Young people who want to study
but have the edge by engaging in
career-related activity during the
day.
• Mature students who left school
and want a second chance.
• Career changers.
• PhDs who want to research with
our academics.
• Lifelong learners (oldest student
was in her 90s).
• Leisure learners/retirees who
finally have time to pursue their
passion.
• Flipside:
• Info on changes to part-time
funding, etc., often lags behind
government statements – so
sometimes Birkbeck is the main
source for this information (eg
part-time student loans).
ABOUT OUR STUDENTS

31. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
In the last academic
year:
• 2.3m people visited
our site, looking at an
average 4.46 pages
per session, lasting
4:11 minutes on
average.
• 57% of users came to
us from Google.
• People visited from
231 countries – but UK
accounts for 78% of
visits.
• 30% of all visits were
on mobile, while 64%
were on desktop.
ABOUT OUR WEB

32. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
1996 2003
2007 2008 2010
• Since 1996, we have had
six iterations of our
homepage – including an
increasing number of
redeveloped pages.
• The Birkbeck web now
comprises more than
82,400 publicly indexed
content items.

33. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
2016: DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
PROJECT

34. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
– Ensure our website reflects our
new visual ID (new design):
• image-heavy
• specific palate of colours.
– Support recruitment onto
Birkbeck courses by improving
the student user journey.
– Convert the whole Birkbeck
website into responsive design.
– Ensure the web works for
everyone, including people with
accessibility requirements.
– Get rid of duplicate, out-of-date
and poor content.

35. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
Stage 1 (by May 2017)
• Customer journey mapping
(Headscape) to inform web
design.
• Develop new web design
(Pentagram).
• Web build Stage 1: apply new
design to homepage, course
listings and tertiary prospective
student pages; upgrade
navigation and content.
Stages 2 and 3 (dates tbc)
• Stage 2: apply new design to
school and department sites
and convert to responsive
design; upgrade navigation and
content.
• Stage 3: do the same thing for
the rest of the Birkbeck
website.
• Stage 4: breathe.
DIGITAL ROADMAP

36. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
CJM: WHAT DID
WE LEARN?

37. Old school
Traditional
Outdated
Plain
Dull
Cumbersome
Mediocre
Lacks flair
Blocky
Unimpressive
Colours are unattractive
Doesn’t show Birkbeck’s personality
Not enough pictures
Needs more videos
Some pictures quite lame
Less dynamic (than other university sites)
Navigation is confusing
Text too small
List text too close together
Some buttons not obvious enough
Videos are tiny and on the side
Modern
Clear
Precise
Beautiful pictures and colours
Professional
Nice layout
Not too crowded
Not too colourful
Mature
OK in terms of reflecting what Birkbeck is like
Images are inclusive - especially ages
Not flashy like UCL
Readable
Appealing
Intuitive
Straightforward
Good font sizes
Good colour scheme
Doesn’t overuse images
Photos good
Good videos of students / lecturers talking

38. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
• Problems with course finding -
some courses didn’t appear in
search results and/or under index
headings.
• Bursaries and scholarships: not
easy to find them.
• Student service information –
really hard to find (all over the
place; content maintained by
about 85 people).
HARD TO FIND IMPORTANT INFORMATION

39. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
MESSAGES / USP NOT ALWAYS CLEAR
Teaching is
in the
evenings!
(who knew?).

40. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
HIDING OUR LIGHT: NOT EASY TO FIND OUT HOW BIRKBECK
DOES IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL RANKINGS
National Student Survey 2016:
Birkbeck has top scores UK-wide for:
• Archaeology
• Classics
• Finance
• Geology
• Linguistics
and number 1 in London for:
• Economics
• English
Did you know when you applied?

41. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
PRACTICAL DETAILS REALLY MATTER BEFORE ENROLMENT –
BUT IT ISN’T ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO GET THEM!
• Wanted (well) before
enrolment…
timetables
course handbooks
reading lists

42. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
MANY STUDENTS NEED TO BOOST THEIR
CONFIDENCE
– but
almost impossible to
find information on
study skills

43. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
OTHER FINDINGS?
• Talking to Birkbeck staff can be
transformative – it’s the point at
which many students make the
final decision to study with us.
• Our website is really important to
prospective students. Some of them
visit our website hundreds of times
over 2-3 years before making the
decision to study with us.
• Our students work really hard to
find the information they need –
we don’t make it easy for them!

44. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
NEXT
STEP: WEB
DESIGN

45. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
DEVELOPMENT OF DESIGN
• Meeting between CJM
researchers and designers
to understand problems.
• Three meetings between
designers and Birkbeck
project team.
• Design concept agreed
and signed off.
• Style guide developed by
designers – delivered day
before Birkbeck broke for
Christmas.

46. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
WEB DESIGN GUIDELINES
1. Simplify and clear away
clutter.
2. Push up content and
reduce steps.
3. Connect content and
surface a story on every
page.
4. Create hierarchy.
5. Don’t be afraid of long
pages.

47. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
• 1000+
content pages
+ 1200 files
reduced to
100 content
pages + 56
files
•

48. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
NEW HOMEPAGE

49. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
STATEMENT TILES No more hiding our light under a bushel!

50. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
NEWS, EVENTS AND BLOGS/PODCASTS
To raise our research profile and our successes,
we’ve embedded news, events and blogs/podcasts
in all of our key landing pages – including all of our
course descriptions

51. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
Other
changes

52. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
New digital standards
• Birkbeck house style, tone of
voice guidelines, file
management instructions, image
instructions, social media
guidelines and our corporate
identity guidelines.

53. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
Content improvements
Comprehensive list of questions
prospective students ask at various
parts of their user journey:
• New content pages (eg
information for parents)
• Improved content (eg revisited
our application / enrolment
information in light of student
questions)

54. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
User testing
• User testing is now a standard
part of all of our web
development work – which has
led to significant changes to our
web site – eg two-stage
improvements to search:
remedial changes to our existing
search + commissioning of
Funnelback to replace site and
course search.
• All web developments now user
tested before and after go-live.

55. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
Fix-It Friday
• Since going live with our site a
year ago, we have not restored
web access to the 85 people who
used to have access to our student
service information.
• Instead, we have introduced Fix-
It Friday to action all routine
maintenance requests – all
requests through Yammer.
• More than 300 requests actioned
in the past year; requests for
access to the site have stopped.
• Content owners rebranded
‘subject experts’.

56. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
We use the techniques
• Student services reboot – met
with all services and ran a ‘mini-
CJM’ – post-it notes on customer
questions, feelings, etc.
• Card-sorting exercise.
• Request staff to select the top
priorities by ticking the post-it
notes.
Result: staff feel consulted and part
of the web solution.

57. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
What
next?

58. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
WHAT NEXT?
We’ve launched Stage 2 – are now
working with schools and departments
to improve their presence on the
Birkbeck website.
Stage 3: the rest of the Birkbeck
website!!!
Stage 4 and breathe…

59. WWW.BBK.AC.UK
ANY
QUESTIONS?