UofG Life blog: A Refreshing Change!
It was lovely to be back on campus recently and get the buzz from all the new students. The UofG Life app team had a stall at Welcome Week, where we had great fun chatting to the freshers and doing demos of the app. This year we had a new campaign built around our strapline ‘Keep it simple’ and some very fetching hoodies to tie in with the theme.
The start of a new academic year is a key time for us in the app team, as this is the primary adoption point for the UofG Life app. If we can convince students to download the app now, it will not only benefit them on their life at university and access to all its handy features, but it will mean they can participate in making the app better.
In the lead up to Welcome Week we focussed strongly on trying to define what features might help students in their welcome journey. Using student and data insights from previous years, and conducting research what students found useful, it was clear to see there was a couple of strong areas where we felt the app could really help. Students told us they wanted an easy way to see what events were on so they could meet new people and get to know their fellow students. They were also keen to understand what clubs and societies were available to sign up to.
Both ideas posed a challenge for the team in terms of aggregating the information from all over the University and then building an interface that made it easy to input the information as well as accessing it on screen. To do this we collaborated closely with the main Communications team, and the SRC to make sure we were presenting the right information, in the right way.
At the same time, we were supporting timetabling and teaching in 2021/22 to make sure that students understood what spaces were available to them on campus for synchronous online learning and private study and collaboration. So, over the course of two weeks we released three features, all of which have attracted a huge amount of traffic on the app which has been fantastic to see.
Some interesting statistics:
- Find a Space, since its launch w/c 20 September it has reached almost 26,500 views.
- Events, was up 34% on w/c 27 September from the previous week, reaching 6127 views.
- Since it’s launch, Clubs and Societies has been viewed 35,691 times.
- During the w/c 20 September, we had the highest record of Weekly Active Users, at 46,707.
It’s great to collaborate with service areas across the University and demonstrate the benefits the app brings as an engagement and service access point to staff and students. With over 39,000 downloads of the app, it’s clear that we’ve got a high penetration across Team UofG.
We are really chuffed with the how the Welcome event went and the response to the campaign so far and look out for more activity over the next few weeks.
If you have any ideas for the app or would like to find out more, then contact us.
#Keepitsimple