The Problem
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A leading university needed to improve how prospective students discover and navigate courses online. The existing structure made it difficult for users to find the right course efficiently, reflected internal structures rather than student mental models, and risked impacting conversion across key acquisition journeys. The core challenge was to define how hundreds of courses should be categorised and surfaced to support intuitive navigation.
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Our Approach
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• Analysed existing datasets, prior research and Google Analytics to identify navigation issues and content gaps
• Conducted search behaviour and keyword analysis to align structure with real student demand
• Developed and refined a new course categorisation model moving from complex multi-tier to simplified structure
• Validated through large-scale tree testing (n=169 across key student cohorts) to measure discoverability, speed and accuracy
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Key Insights
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• Students do not think in institutional structures, so navigation must align to how users search and evaluate courses rather than how universities organise internally
• Overly complex hierarchies reduce discoverability, while simplifying structures reduces steps and cognitive load
• Demand signals including search queries, site search and popularity, which should inform categories and prioritisation
• The experience must support both novice users exploring broadly and informed users navigating directly
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Optimisation Recommenations & Implementation
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• Introduced a new course categorisation framework, expanding and restructuring study areas
• Optimised the navigation model to be simpler and more intuitive
• Embedded data-led decision making (search, behaviour, testing) into IA and UX design processes
• Aligned internal stakeholders around a single, validated structure
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Results
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• Significant improvement in speed and efficiency of course discovery, with the new structure reducing time to find courses by approximately 50%
• Improvement in navigation confidence and discoverability, with users finding courses more intuitively
• Strong overall discoverability performance of approximately 75% or above success rates across journeys
• Established a scalable foundation for future course growth and digital optimisation.

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