{"id":1875,"date":"2026-06-22T14:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/?p=1875"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:25:00","slug":"designing-assessment-pages-that-works-for-students-what-ux-research-told-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/designing-assessment-pages-that-works-for-students-what-ux-research-told-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing Assessment Pages that Works for Students: What UX Research Told Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Assessment is one of the most high-stakes parts of a student’s learning experience. Yet the way assessment information is presented on KEATS has until now been\u00a0largely left\u00a0to individual modules, leading to inconsistency, confusion and unnecessary friction at the moments students can least afford it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This\u00a0article\u00a0presents the case for a redesigned Assessment Template for KEATS, drawing on user research with King\u2019s students and following the design process from Discovery through to Delivery. It aims to provide a practical, evidence-based rationale for the template and support colleagues in considering its adoption within their own modules.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What the research told us\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The need to redesign the KEATS Assessment section\u00a0emerged\u00a0from UX research into students\u2019 experiences of navigating module pages. During the\u00a0interviews\u00a0with thirty King\u2019s students, assessment-related tasks consistently surfaced as the most significant pain point.\u00a0Common challenges\u00a0included:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Findability of assessment is the biggest blocker.<\/span><\/b> Students frequently encounter assessment details spread across multiple locations (pages, documents, links). This makes it difficult to build a clear understanding of requirements, deadlines, and expectations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Submission is not clearly signposted.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Students often struggle to confidently\u00a0identify\u00a0where to\u00a0submit, even when they find the relevant section.\u00a0Submission links can feel hidden, out of place, or insufficiently\u00a0emphasised. Not visually distinct is a common complaint when assessment submission links look like any other blue link.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Label and heading ambiguity create risk.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Participants repeatedly mentioned heading\u00a0and\u00a0naming confusion, such as multiple similarly named links. Ambiguous titles (i.e. January submission) drive errors, especially close to deadlines.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overload from dense or excessive assessment content.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Assessment briefs, guidance documents, and submission links are often presented at the same visual level resulting in poor hierarchy between information, submission, and supporting materials.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Uncertainty around deadlines, weighting, and requirements.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Critical information such as deadlines or formats is not sufficiently highlighted or\u00a0standardised\u00a0and thus\u00a0students\u00a0express confusion about deadlines or what exactly needs to be\u00a0submitted.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Grades and feedback are not always easy to\u00a0locate.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0While it\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0a primary focus of the user research, a few students mentioned that they struggle to find where grades are released\u00a0in a timely manner.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The research not only highlighted the challenging aspects of navi<\/span>gating assessment but also provided a clear direction for improvement. Students consistently expressed a need for an assessment section that follows a consistent and predictable structure, is easy to scan, and presents key information clearly without overwhelming them with dense text.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why we’re doing this\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The goal of the Assessment Template is simple: students should always know where to find what they need, regardless of which module\u00a0they’re\u00a0on. This reinforces the need for a consistent and predictable assessment experience, with a single, trusted location where students can easily access key information, understand requirements, and complete submissions without searching multiple areas in the module. The template provides this structure, while still allowing academic teams to\u00a0customise\u00a0the content within it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How we got here: solution discovery\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I explored a range of real assessment scenarios to ensure the template was grounded in actual module needs, not just a theoretical ideal. Four use cases shaped the design 1. Coursework only 2. Remote online exam 3. Coursework + remote online exam 4. Coursework + online exam in person.\u00a0<\/span>This helped defined the right design opportunities:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0<\/span>How might we give students a single, trusted starting point<\/span><\/b>\u00a0where they can\u00a0immediately\u00a0understand all assessment requirements and deadlines?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0<\/span>How might we ensure the submission area is placed where students expect it<\/span><\/b>, reducing confusion and last-minute submission stress?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0<\/span>How might we make assessment pages easy to scan<\/span><\/b>, so students can\u00a0locate\u00a0what they need in seconds?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Two design directions\u00a0emerged\u00a0from this wireframing process. Both had the same content; the key difference was where submission links were placed. In Design A, submission links appeared inline within each assessment section. In Design B, they were\u00a0consolidated\u00a0into a dedicated ‘Submission area’ at the bottom of the assessment section. We put both to testing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Usability testing\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

An unmoderated usability testing was conducted usin<\/span>g Maze (a user research and testing tool) to compare the two assessment page designs. The testing aimed to assess students’ experience of the assessment\u00a0section as a whole, rather\u00a0than focusing solely on any one\u00a0component. A total of 37 participants took part across the two design variants,\u00a0comprising\u00a0both King’s students and members of the public.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Including public participants alongside King’s students allowed us to compare the experience of users familiar with university learning environments against those\u00a0encountering\u00a0it for the first time, helping\u00a0identify\u00a0desi<\/span>gn patterns that were intuitive regardless of prior experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
Screenshot of the heatmap interaction for the assessment section in Maze.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Key takeaways\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Page structure and headings were\u00a0validated.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0The assessment summary table providing an overview of all assessments, types, weightings, due dates, and feedback timelines received an ease-of-use rating above 4.0 out of 5. The ‘General guidance’ section was also well received, with\u00a0the majority of\u00a0participants reporting it\u00a0contained\u00a0‘just enough’ information which means not too sparse nor too overwhelming.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The submission-flow results strongly\u00a0favoured\u00a0Design A.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Across all participants, submission links were\u00a0located\u00a023.9% faster and users reported 20% greater confidence when submission links were embedded within their associated assessments, compared to when they were grouped into a separate area. This was the clearest and most consistent finding across the testing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students hold a clear mental model: an assessment is one unit.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0The brief, the resources, and the submission link belong together. The template\u00a0honours\u00a0this expectation by keeping these elements\u00a0together, making the page easier to scan and the submission journey more confident\u00a0at the moment\u00a0it matters most. Separating these elements created a mental\u00a0disconnect that led users to search in multiple places before finding what they needed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking ahead\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For now, implementing the template is still a manual process, requiring academic teams to work through guidance and replace placeholder content directly within the page. While straightforward, it does require some familiarity with KEATS.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking further ahead, we have plans to work with our developers to make this process significantly more automated and intuitive, feeding in information from tools like\u00a0CourseLoop\u00a0and SITS. This structured approach would reduce the risk of misconfigured pages, make the template easier to adopt for less confident KEATS users, and make consistency the default outcome rather than something that requires\u00a0additional\u00a0effort.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When students know where to look, they spend less time navigating and more time on what matters. A consistent, well-structured assessment section is not a small UX improvement. It is a scalable intervention in the student assessment experience that reduces uncertainty and supports student success across modules.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are interested in implementing the new Assessment section on your KEATS Module, please do reach out to your\u00a0<\/span>Faculty Digital Education<\/span><\/a>\u00a0team or\u00a0<\/span>DigiEd<\/span><\/a>\u00a0directly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

About the author\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Madison Wang is a Product Designer at King\u2019s Digital, collaborating with Digital Education agile teams to improve the KEATS experience for staff and students.\u00a0Part of the UX team,\u00a0specialising\u00a0in end-to-end design and translating user research and insights into practical, evidence-based solutions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overview Assessment is one of the most high-stakes parts of a student’s learning experience. Yet the way assessment information is presented on KEATS has until now been\u00a0largely left\u00a0to individual modules, leading to inconsistency, confusion and unnecessary friction at the moments students can least afford it.\u00a0 This\u00a0article\u00a0presents the case for a redesigned Assessment Template for KEATS, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,139,13,15],"tags":[158,131,23,141],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evaluation-and-reflection","category-moodle4","category-pedagogy","category-technologies","tag-evaluation-and-reflection","tag-moodle-4","tag-pedagogy","tag-technologies","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/digitaleducation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}