New University website homepage

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

The University's homepage has been given a new look. The website homepage has been redesigned to give visual prominence and more space to student recruitment and promotion of University activity and messages, whether that is a Public Lecture, an Open Day, a welcome message to Freshers, our latest research or our latest achievement.

The Digital Development team, who have implemented the redesign, consulted with key people around the University as well as users of the website and examined over two years' worth of data to understand who uses the site and what they generally are looking for. This has allowed them to tailor the content and links to reflect what users of the website need when they arrive on the page.

Helen Setchell, Head of Web and New Media in the Digital Development team, said: "The old homepage was trying to be all things to all people, and lacked focus and purpose.  It was link heavy and didn't have enough space for visuals, so we have streamlined the content to focus on the main priority areas required."

The new homepage will automatically adjust itself to fit on different screen sizes across a range of devices, such as iPhones and laptops. This means that people accessing the website on their phones will be able to get to the links they need quickly and easily without having to scroll around a large page.

Helen continued: "Although the new design is now live, we are intending to further develop the ‘promotional' area where the banner, news and events are located, and have also started work on redeveloping recruitment content (especially the Study and Life sections) across the digital presence over the next academic year. We will also be focussing on giving the website a more international focus.

"We plan to monitor the results of these changes against the goals we set, by looking to see if there is increased traffic to the recruitment and news areas of the website, and therefore increased opportunities for conversions and engagement."

The team welcome all feedback and future ideas - please email them on digitaldevelopment@reading.ac.uk