User Experience (UX) Design
BMAN 24662


Academic year 2020/21
Semester 2











Teaching team:
Alex Gunz, alex.gunz@manchester.ac.uk
Olabode Ogunbodede, olabode.ogunbodede@manchester.ac.uk
Marzena Nieroda, marzena.nieroda@manchester.ac.uk





The deadline for the assignment is 3pm, Wednesday, May 12th, 2021.
Please upload your assignment via the Turnitin portal on the course Blackboard page.

PROJECT BRIEF
Brand/client: Manchester Alliance Business School
Product/service offering: Postgraduate degree programs.
Client background: Alliance Manchester Business School was established in 1965 as
one of the UK’s first two business schools. We are triple accredited by AACSB, EQUIS
and AMBA and are part of the prestigious University of Manchester.
As a research-led business school, we are ranked 2nd in the UK for research power.
Our influential research impacts all areas of business and management – from
management sciences, marketing, innovation, work and employment to organizational
psychology, accounting, and finance.
We also provide world-class, industry-focused education to undergraduates,
postgraduates, and executives from across the globe.
Our brand essence - Original Thinking Applied - is at the heart of everything we do. This
means that our research positively impacts businesses, policy and third sector
organizations.
Client objectives:
To understand the friction, pain points and opportunities across any point in the online
journey to application for a Master’s student. To optimize and improve the user
experience (UX) of a typical applicant on the AMBS website, with the aim to increase
conversion among the top-quality candidates.
Target audience:
Master level candidates, who have completed their undergraduate degree. They can
come from a variety of cultures with different languages spoken and cultural
background. They will also vary in age and level of professional experience.
Deliverable:
We would like you to deliver a UX plan which will inform changes to be introduced to the
AMBS website. Your plan should be grounded in rigorous user research, which will
inform user experience journey(s) for different users. The plan should include a list of
recommended improvements (proposed as wireframes) as well as the testing
framework to verify said recommendations and implement them as appropriate. You
should ensure the development of your proposed solution follows the process as
advised by the design thinking principles.
Timings: Your final plan should be delivered no later than by 3pm on Wednesday, May
12th, 2021.
PROJECT GUIDANCE
The following website will give you an idea of what to include in your UX report. Please
note, some of the information and content do not correspond exactly to what we
discussed in the course. Therefore, please focus on elements that were covered
throughout the course this semester. The report should contain the following elements:
1) Executive summary of the work undertaken (200 words)
2) Project assessment (a summary of an evaluation process which will help UX
designers understand a current state of the product. Please note, this assessment
should be performed by you. This is similar task to the one we performed in lab 2 in
relation to Waterstones website).
3) Competitor assessment (This section should follow typical business analysis (e.g.,
SWOT analysis), and should be predominantly focused on internal analysis revolving
around competitor’s value proposition and website performance/UX design).
4) User research1 (This section should contain a summary of all the undertaken user
research, including your sampling approach, data collection methods, data analysis and
results. Your results should be presented in the following way: (a) user personas, (b)
user scenarios, (c) journey and experience map).
5) Information architecture & interaction design (This section should show the process
through which you arrive at the prototype of the website following the suggested
improvements. The process of deciding on specific improvement(s) should include the
ideation and prioritization considerations, as specified by the design thinking approach.
6) A summary of the expected results as well as the testing framework to verify your
recommendations and implement them as appropriate.
You are required to prepare a 2,500 words UX report (not including the list
of references or appendices – everything else counts, including the title
page). This is an individual assignment worth 100% of your course mark.
There is 10% leeway on the word-count. The standard university penalties
for late submission apply – see Blackboard for details. References to all
publications must be in Harvard style and carefully checked for
completeness, accuracy, and consistency.
Please have a look at the marking rubric to understand marking criteria.

1 Please note, do not undertake any user research before consulting with the member of the teaching
team about your research plan (e.g., interview/usability study script). There are ethical considerations you
should discuss with us first.


































































































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