Digital transformation has become a priority for higher education institutions as a result of changing student expectations, growing competition, and the need to deliver more efficient, accessible digital services. Institutions are now investing more in technology to improve how they operate and engage with their audiences. This could be within student portals, learning platforms, or the university website itself.
Successful digital transformation is rooted in understanding the people who will use new technology. For universities and executive education providers, for instance, this means looking beyond platforms and functionality and considering the needs, behaviours, and expectations of different audiences: prospective students, current students, academic staff, and professional partners to name a few. This understanding is crucial because significant digital investments risk creating experiences that are hard to navigate or poorly aligned with what users are trying to achieve.
What does digital transformation mean for higher education?
Digital transformation in higher education refers to the strategic use of digital technologies to improve institutional processes and services. Examples include modernising a university website, improving an online application journey, or integrating student management systems. But transformation isn’t limited to the technology itself – a large part of it is actually rethinking the way digital services are designed, delivered, and maintained. Imagine a university that has introduced a sophisticated programme finder, but prospective students are contacting the university to let them know that its categories and filtering mechanisms aren’t reflecting how students search for learning opportunities.
Why understanding user needs is essential
Higher education institutions serve a diverse range of audiences. Each audience will have a different set of motivations, expectations, and levels of familiarity within digital environments.
- Prospective undergraduate students may want to explore courses, compare entry requirements, and understand campus life
- Current students might want to find portals and calendars
- International students may prioritise visa information and tuition fees
- Staff may want to access their intranet or university updates
- Parents may want to access accommodation and fee information
- For executive education sites, individual professionals may be searching for programmes that support career progression
- Corporate learning and development teams may be evaluating training opportunities for an entire organisation
Designing digital experiences around institutional structures rather than these varied user needs can create unnecessary complexity. An organisation might categorise its website content according to internal departments or faculties. While this structure makes sense internally, it may not align with how prospective learners understand their options or look for information. Understanding these differences helps institutions create digital experiences that support real tasks rather than simply reflecting how the organisation operates.
The evidence
Jisc’s 2024/25 Digital Experience Insights survey, which gathered responses from more than 15,000 higher education students across 30 UK providers, found that 86% rated their digital learning environment positively. However, students continued to identify challenges around platform usability, connectivity, access to suitable devices and digital support.
These findings highlight an important distinction: students can be broadly satisfied with digital provision while still experiencing significant barriers in specific parts of their journey.
A user-centred approach helps institutions identify and address these barriers rather than assuming that investment in technology alone will resolve them.
How user research supports better digital transformation
User research provides the evidence needed to understand how people interact with digital services, where they encounter difficulties and what improvements would make the greatest difference. Rather than relying solely on stakeholder assumptions or internal priorities, institutions can use research to inform decisions throughout the transformation process.
Different research methods can help answer different questions:
- User interviews provide an opportunity to explore motivations, expectations and frustrations in depth. Speaking with prospective students or professional learners can reveal what influences their decisions and which information they need most.
- Usability testing helps identify problems with existing websites, platforms and prototypes by observing how people complete realistic tasks. This can reveal barriers that may not be apparent through analytics alone.
- Card sorting and tree testing can support improvements to information architecture. These methods help institutions understand how users categorise information and whether they can navigate a proposed structure successfully.
- Website analytics can provide quantitative evidence about how users interact with digital content, including where they enter, navigate and leave a website.
Combining these approaches provides a more complete picture of user behaviour.
For example, analytics might reveal that users regularly leave an executive education programme page without submitting an enquiry. User interviews and usability testing could then help explain why, whether that’s unclear eligibility criteria, missing pricing information or an enquiry process that feels unnecessarily complicated. The goal is to move beyond identifying what is happening to understanding why it happens and what should change.
Measuring success through user outcomes
A successful digital transformation project needs clear measures of success. While technical performance, platform stability and operational efficiency are important, institutions should also evaluate whether changes have improved the experiences they set out to address.
Relevant measures might include:
- Improved task completion rates: Can prospective students find the information they need more successfully?
- Reduced friction: Are users encountering fewer barriers when navigating, applying or making enquiries?
- Increased engagement: Are users interacting meaningfully with relevant course and programme content?
- Improved conversion: Are more prospective learners progressing from programme discovery to enquiry or application?
- Greater user satisfaction: Do students and staff find digital services easier and more effective to use?
These measures should be established early in a project, with existing performance benchmarked before changes are introduced.
Creating meaningful digital transformation with Make it Clear
Digital transformation in higher education is ultimately about improving how institutions connect with and support the people they serve. New technologies and platforms can play an important role, but their value depends on how effectively they respond to real user needs.
At Make it Clear, we help organisations understand their audiences and translate research insights into intuitive, accessible, and effective digital experiences. Through user research, UX strategy, information architecture and UI design, we help education providers identify opportunities for improvement and make informed decisions about their digital services.
Whether you’re planning a university website redesign, improving executive education programme discovery or reviewing your wider digital experience, we can help you put user needs at the heart of your approach. Get in touch here with Make it Clear to discuss how user-centred design can support your next digital transformation project.
