< Back to Our thinking

A service design approach to content creation and management: downloadable template

Posted by

There are many contact points in a student’s journey from their initially considering applying to a university, to enrolment, time during their programme, and beyond. Given the number of staff across faculties, departments, and schools, the content and messaging students receive at different points in their journey can become disjointed.

Common content problems include too many content creators and editors across teams creating duplicate content, with limited or unclear ownership. Often, governance can become complex, or disappear entirely and content can end up duplicated, out of date and ultimately useless to the people it’s meant to help. Content works as part of a service, and this is also true in the context of higher education. Service design is concerned with the connections and wider relationships between touchpoints and user needs. Taking a service design-driven approach to content means that we can link known data and information about audience sentiment and motivations with specific touchpoints. We can understand the gaps between what currently exists, the content audiences need, and how resources in different parts of the organisation are used to meet these needs. We can also then connect this to data and technology, and think creatively around what is currently used, what could be used more effectively, and how to frame business cases to acquire new tools, skills, data and technology. Taking a service design-driven approach, universities can be more flexible and responsive in content decisions. They can make more effective use of channels and personalization, not just thinking in terms of campaigns, but linking content to business goals, follow an overarching map of the service to be created, with a clear understanding of why. Working in this way, institutions can understand resources and skillsets available and capitalise on them through a more effective content team structure that focuses on the content project at hand to assemble the best skills for the job. Use this template board to place content decisions in the context of an over-arching service design, informed by the desired business outcomes that drive content creation and the people, resources and technology available to support. If you’re interested in having a more in-depth discussion about your content strategy, get in touch with the team at london@curio.co
* indicates required
Sign up to our mailing list?
Select the content most relevant to your interests
about the writer

Chloë Threadgold

Senior Consultant & Curio Course Hub Product Manager

Chloë works across a range of digital projects including user research, content and marketing strategy. She has led and worked on an array of projects across marketing and content strategy, user testing and prototyping, qualitative and quantitative research for international charities, the NHS, corporations, membership associations and education institutions. Chloë joined Curio from a digital agency specialising in the higher education, not-for-profit and membership sectors, where she provided strategic advice on content, brand, UX, analytics, technology and digital marketing. Prior to this, she worked as a qualitative researcher for an agency specialised in connecting brands with women. Clients value her ability to thoroughly interrogate organisational and user needs to come up with creative, evidence-based solutions to their challenges.  Learn more about Chloë
Talk to Chloë about:
  • Application development
  • Data, analytics and learning
  • Learning technologies
  • Marketing and sales
  • Online teaching and learning
  • People and capability
  • Service design
  • Strategy
  • User experience design
Contact Chloë on:

P:

LinkedIn

More of our thinking

Building a university homepage using an iterative UX design process

Our Digital Director Michael Frantzis discusses a past project of his, redesigning University College London’s homepage with Independent Design Director, Will Kruger and UX Consultant Marcos Villasenor. The project involved extensive user testing to iteratively improve the page design and refine content. The result was a beautiful, user-friendly landing homepage that saw some impressive results.

Skills Passport Curio Group Submission

  The National Skills Passport stands as a transformative tool that could significantly streamline the recognition of qualifications and credentials, serving as a bridge between learners’ achievements and employers’ needs. By facilitating a more efficient verification process, the Skills Passport promises to reduce the administrative burden and costs associated with credential validation.    Key Principle Skills Passport Curio Group Submission

Unlocking Digital Transformation: Insights from Education Experts

In a dynamic panel session at Digifest 2024 in Birmingham, the participants discussed the concept of “frictionless learning” and its implications for education in the digital age. The panelists included Michael Frantzis from Curio, Neil Stapleton from Cambridge Judge Business School, Julia Leong Son from University of London Worlwide, and David White from University Arts Unlocking Digital Transformation: Insights from Education Experts

Why Student Evaluation is Broken: Using Cookies and Science

Learning Experience Lead, Tom Whitford, reminds us why student evaluation survey results shouldn’t be taken at face value. This article highlights key variables which can distort student feedback findings and results, one being supplying sweet treats during the survey! Have a read to find out more.

Charting a Course for Australia’s Future: The Universities Accord

  The Australian Universities Accord seeks to be a game-changer for the nation’s future, signalling a monumental leap in higher education strategy and policy not seen since the Bradley Review. It’s an ambitious playbook for improving Australia’s economic, social, and green credentials. Here’s the Curio summary:    By 2050, we’re talking about increasing the number Charting a Course for Australia’s Future: The Universities Accord

“Now, it’s a lot harder” : Unpacking the student perspective on the recent lockdown of UK campuses

In 2020, we interviewed UK students to find out their perspectives on the changes to their educational offerings in response to COVID-19 and discuss what institutions need to do to going forward. From listening to these students and reflecting on their views, we have put together some key takeaways and suggestions universities should take on board as they start to prepare for Semester 2.

The importance of high-quality online facilitators

With the rise of online learning, the demand for expert online facilitators has become significant. Curio Academy understands what it takes to be an expert in online facilitation and encourages aspiring and experienced online facilitators to refine their skills to stay current within the innovating education sector.