Neil Allison

Head of Prospective Student Web Content

Background

Neil is an experienced and qualified user experience professional, with a long track record in the public sector digital management and enhancement.

As Head of Prospective Student Web Content, he leads a multi-disciplinary team tasked with unifying the University's approach to online provision for prospective students.

A champion of user-centred research and design techniques, he has pioneered their use in a wide range of University projects and in a previous role established the User Experience Service within Information Services.

Neil initially joined the University to lead on user research, training and support elements in the development and management of the organisation's first corporate web content management system service. Earlier in his career, Neil was a teacher and a higher education student recruitment & engagement officer.

Qualifications

Neil holds an accredited postgraduate qualification in Human Computer Interaction.

His undergraduate degree is in Technology Management, and he also holds a postgraduate teaching qualification.

Project activity

Neil oversees a wide range of projects supporting colleagues across the University in the development and enhancement of prospective student digital experiences.

The key elements he brings to all these projects are:

  • Helping teams and their stakeholders come to a common view of who they're serving and why
  • Understanding user needs and how these align with business priorities
  • Establishing sustainable management practices informed by regular user insight

 

 

Invited speaker

  • Content Ed 2021, 2022, 2023
  • HMRC ResCon 2019
  • UX Scotland 2017 & 2019
  • UCISA Leaders 2016
  • IWMW Higher Education Web Managers 2012, 2014 & 2016
  • CIM Higher Education Group 2013
  • Scottish User Experience Professionals Association 2010 & 2011

Organiser

  • UX Scotland 2024 (Advisory panel)
  • UK EduCamp 2024 (Host institution and co-organiser)
  • IWMW Higher Education Web Managers 2012 (Host institution and co-organiser)

Impact of the Prospective Student Web Content Team

Better website management 

Case studies from the User Experience Service

More UX Service case studies

Thinking about user experience

  • UX: The building blocks of digital transformation - An opinion piece on digital transformation, and how underneath it all, it's really just good management of user experiences
  • Lean UX – requirements are hypotheses - Inspired by a workshop run by Lean UX author Jeff Gothelf, this is an introduction to the concepts with examples of how we made it work at the Website Programme
  • Humility in development  - We need to accept that we don’t know it all – in fact we don’t necessarily know very much – and plan our development to accommodate learning along the way

 

  • Martin Bojam Leadership Award (Content Ed Awards 2023)
  • Content Team of the Year (Content Ed Awards 2023)
  • Best Overall Approach to Content Strategy and Content Design (Content Ed Awards 2023)
  • Empathy Award for Advancing Audience Research and Insight (Content Ed Awards 2022)