Content starts with design: how UX thinking can transform student recruitment
Gemma Illidge, Head of Digital
Absolute Nexa 🇬🇧
Great content is only as effective as the design that supports it. In this session, we’ll explore how Queen Margaret University reimagined its undergraduate and postgraduate course pages with UX-led thinking to improve student recruitment. I’ll share how accessibility, navigation, and content hierarchy transformed the way information is experienced. You’ll learn why structure matters just as much as storytelling, how to design for inclusivity and performance, and how collaboration between content, design, and development teams creates real impact.
Key takeaways
Understand why structure matters as much as storytelling – how design and UX decisions shape the effectiveness of your content before a single word is read.
Take away practical tips on how to design for accessibility and inclusivity – turning guidelines into user-first principles that make content work for everyone.
How to align content, design, and development teams to unlock better results and create new content experiences on an existing platform.
Gemma Illidge is Head of Digital at Absolute Nexa, leading a team that delivers digital strategy, UX, design, and development for clients across education, healthcare, and commercial sectors. With over 15 years’ experience, she specialises in creating user-centred platforms that combine creativity, accessibility, and performance.
She recently led Queen Margaret University’s redesign of its prospective student course journey, ensuring content, design, and technology worked seamlessly to support recruitment goals. Passionate about the role of UX in shaping effective content experiences, Gemma brings a practical, strategic perspective on how structure and design decisions directly influence engagement and outcomes.