Creating and Achieving an Accessible Higher Education For Young People

Causeway's mission statement is to support young people in overcoming barriers to accessing higher education, apprenticeships, and early careers.

They design and deliver programmes to ensure that applicants from less privileged backgrounds get the support they need to produce outstanding applications to Higher Education. Bridging that gap is crucial to the trajectory of a young person’s career path. They provide expert support giving teachers the skills and resources they need to ensure all their students can navigate HE applications effectively. The also provide transformational outreach - helping universities, charities, and corporations develop initiatives that inspire and equip participants to take their next steps.

Causeway realised that their online presence did not effectively attract the proper engagement from their target audience and, as such, enlisted our help. Given our new way of working, having visibility and connectivity online is essential to the sustainability of a business and the breadth of people it can reach. The requirements from Causeway were:

• A UX audit of the Causeway online website
• Recommendations on how to improve accessibility and the overall user experience
• Content analysis and proposed storytelling techniques (to drive engagement).

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Approach

The human-centred design team in Sysdoc adopted a robust methodology to review the user experience of their website. The methods and approach incorporated three main frameworks for analysis, underpinned by the following actions (simpler, smarter):

• Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics
• Accessibility principles
• Content and messaging principles
• Linking storytelling recommendations with digital/social media concepts (through an understanding of their target audiences)
• Using design techniques to problem-solve, always incorporating the questions; ‘Why are we doing this? What will we achieve?’

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Outcomes

• A thorough set of recommendations that were listed and prioritised by impact
• Review and analysis of the aspects of their webpage that were poorly designed followed bad practice, or had possible usability problems (working to achieve an inclusive platform for all young people)
• Looking ahead to the future, what else should be assessed in the future for continued improvement
• Established a strong working relationship and trust with the client that allowed them to come on the entire journey with Sysdoc

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Working with Causeway incorporated specialists within Sysdoc from the People & Culture team, alongside the Human-centred design consultants. There is no sustainable way to implement new designs and outlooks without evaluating how your people will join the journey with you to act as true advocates for your organisation