The Problem
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A leading Australian university identified that its Year 12 and school leaver digital experience had become fragmented across multiple standalone campaign pages. This created disconnected journeys, inconsistent messaging and poor discoverability of important information for both students and parents. The university wanted a single unified destination for school leavers to centralise campaign activity and better support prospective students from course exploration through to application.
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Our Methodology & Approach
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• In-depth interviews with Year 12 students and parents
• Large-scale behavioural surveys and unmoderated usability testing
• Visual stimulus testing across the university and five competitor universities
• Feature audits and UX benchmarking
• Analysis of course discovery, admissions and tertiary admissions pathways
• Content strategy and information architecture recommendations
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Key Insights & Recommendations
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• Students and parents experienced significant information overload driven by fragmented navigation, dense content and inconsistent terminology
• Research journeys rarely began with which university, instead starting with course interests, careers or location preferences
• Parents emerged as highly influential co-pilots in the decision-making process, but most university websites were designed almost entirely for students
• Students urgently wanted clearer entry requirement guidance, while parents prioritised course comparison functionality and downloadable planning resources
• Financial terminology created significant confusion and anxiety, particularly for parents unfamiliar with university funding structures
• Open Days acted as critical confirmation moments capable of reinforcing or breaking university preference decisions late in the funnel
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Optimisation Recommendations
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• Create a unified Year 12 hub consolidating campaign, support and admissions content
• Develop separate but interconnected student and parent pathways
• Introduce entry estimation and admissions tools directly within course discovery journeys
• Build comparison functionality enabling side-by-side course evaluation
• Simplify admissions and pathways information architecture
• Reframe course pages to focus more heavily on career outcomes, employability and confidence-building messaging
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Results
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• Delivered a clear evidence-based roadmap for the university's future school leaver digital experience
• Identified major friction points impacting conversion, trust and discoverability across the Year 12 journey
• Helped reposition the digital experience around real student and parent behaviour rather than internal organisational structures
• Enabled the university to better balance functional information delivery with emotional reassurance during a high-stakes life decision journey.