UCD: Student Recruitment Portal

Since the start of 2008, we have been working with UCD Recruitment to refine and enhance the user-interface, information design and presentation of content on MyUCD.ie — the university’s student recruitment portal.

This portal site serves all potential students of UCD, providing detailed course information tailored to each student's unique requirements. It also offers functionality that assists them in making final decisions regarding their choices for third or fourth level education. The primary design framework of this portal falls within the overarching template shared by all UCD web pages.

Our work began with developing the School of Science section within myUCD, we have since developed the sections for Arts and for Law. Our focus has been on reviewing and enhancing the structure of content and the presentation of information. Our key insight was to present the options available within Science in terms of degree outputs, rather than as a list of course names. Firstly, this is a student-centric perspective which aligns with their goals and ambitions. Secondly, this approach exposes the full scope of the School's offering for the first time. It delivers on outcomes.

We added a customisable grid of intriguing imagery to the main science page. Science benefits from an inexhaustible resource of beautiful and inspiring imagery. Our treatment of that main page now incorporates the three thematic subject groupings that Science have developed for their printed communications.

At the level of individual Science courses, their page layouts now includes a table explaining the choices and options across the four stages of each degree. Again, this information has proved invaluable to students and has clarified decision-making.

Implementation of our design solutions is being handled in-house by UCD, and is on-track to be completed in autumn 2008.

Fundamentally, our work has shifted the conversation away from the technicalities of the course structures and onto the fascinating and exciting aspects of science. It has allowed UCD to be passionate about science, and has translated into an per cent increase in science applications.