The bursaries and scholarships page is the most popular page in terms of visits from organic search on the Get Into Teaching website.
The page lets users know what bursaries and scholarships are available, and if they’re eligible for them.
User needs around bursary and scholarship information
User research showed that the experience for candidates on the bursary page can be confusing.
Candidates:
- often do not know the difference between scholarships and bursaries
- often misunderstand their eligibility to get funding
- were confused about which subjects had funding
- skipped past important information
We wanted to improve the content structure, address content gaps and include non-UK guidance. Doing this would answer the user needs:
- I need information that is clear and concise so that I know where I am in the process and what to do next
- I need to know the financial support I am eligible for based on my circumstances and qualifications, so that I know whether I can support myself and my family during training
Workshopping changes to the page
We looked at the as-is page in Lucid and workshopped what could be improved.
The funding widget is an interactive component that allows users to select a subject and see what funding is available for this subject. Part of redesigning the page was to look at how we could improve the widget.
To improve the widget, we:
- reduced the amount of content
- removed individual primary subjects (as these do not have bursaries or scholarships) and added primary to the top of the drop-down list
- added the non-UK inset component to provide information to non-UK citizens
- reviewed and updated the component’s position on the page
- made the design of the component more consistent with other informational components across the site
- updated the ‘Continue’ button to ‘Check funding’ to be more descriptive
Reviewing the content
Research showed that users were confused about the difference between a scholarship and a bursary.
Anyone who’s eligible and trains to teach in certain subjects is automatically given a bursary. Candidates need to apply to independent organisations which offer scholarships in particular subjects.
At the top of the page there is now a section that clearly describes the difference between a bursary and a scholarship, and then breaks down the eligibility requirements for them under separate headings. To ensure the page was accessible, we made the headings unique and more explanatory.
There were gaps in the content around eligibility, and how and when the funding is paid. We spoke to policy experts in the bursaries and scholarships team to sense check the content and add further useful information for candidates. After speaking to the policy team, we added further information on how bursaries and scholarships are paid.