Secret ingredient to student research? Doughnuts!
Published: 12 March 2025
How we used doughnuts to super-charge our feedback sessions with students, helping fuel a new brand for the Student Skills & Future workstream
To test some new wording for the Student Skills & Futures workstream, we booked a table in the JMS and handed out doughnuts to students in exchange for their feedback on the new description of myfuture, a new offering in development by the Student Skills & Futures workstream. We also took this messaging to the SRC Class Reps conference and February SRC Council Meeting to gain further insights from a wide group of students.
The idea to use doughnuts was thought up by our student interns Alessandro and Kaitlin, who felt that a sweet treat would help entice those passing by. The deal at the pop-up was that for every doughnut given, feedback was received.
Through the student research in the JMS and discussions with the SRC, we spoke to 80 students. The key takeaways were:
- Overall, the messaging made sense to students, however a few mentioned shortening/condensing the text
- Most students said they would want this to be implemented in their course
- Some students noted similarity to skills trackers in their own Schools, and said they would want this to integrate with existing services like Careers, Employability & Opportunity
We found this style of student research to be hugely effective in getting quick and concise feedback from students on branding and messaging. This has helped fuel our next steps with the myfuture project and provided some useful insights, from a student perspective, that will shape our decisions going forward.
First published: 12 March 2025
