This is typically the first interaction with the institution, although an intermediary such as UCAS may be the first line of support. It is assumed that applications can be made online and offline.
While in the future there will usually be an expectation to apply online, particularly for online courses, allowances must be made for students who opt not to, or cannot do this. A fallback mechanism, or at very least a 'guiding hand' through the online application, must be provided. Amy applied online for this course, and unusually didn't come across any notable problems. She was only frustrated at the fact that the guide and questions/answers section wasn't on the same page, so she had to keep flicking between browser windows. In the end she just printed off the whole guide, even though she only used 10% of the material.
Fiona applied online, misread several of the questions, and was confronted with error messages which made even less sense. The forms didn't seem to be well organised and were too long to keep track of your position easily. There was also no indication of how many questions were left to answer, meaning it was very tiring to keep a positive outlook. Eventually she managed to fill in everything correctly, but this probably wouldn't have been helped with a paper version.
The application forms must appear simple and be easily readable. The university support systems, e.g. Registry, must be ready to be involved by phone rather than online, with an extra element of patience, as even at this early stage, prospective students can be alienated and disenfranchised with an institution they aren't even going to physically visit.
Webforms must be carefully designed to be accessible for screen readers without alienating the rest of the audience they need to be usable for. If the layout isn't logical, or if labels are ambiguously related to several form controls, Justin could end up going round in circles with multiple error messages when he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong; or worse, he could be submitting the wrong information but the badly designed system doesn't alert him to this. Despite this, online application could be beneficial to Justin - braille application forms are just as hard to lay out logically and fill in, and it's empowering not to have to rely on a third-party to complete the form.
Karen applied for and accepted the course in the United Kingdom. She applied online and had no difficulty doing so. On hearing that she was moving to the US, she conducted most of her conversations with course tutors by email, sometimes by telephone. No problems were encountered here although sometimes mixed messages slipped through and needed further clarification.
If applying offline, the student is unlikely to encounter any problems. Online, however, the application process may be protracted due to public 'net access usage limits - a username/password system is imperative here to prevent the applicant becoming frustrated with lack of experience/time. Tim managed to apply online because he booked a long session specifically for apply, but this may not be the case for most applicants.