Do you need maintenance and support for your university website?
Universities that focus user experience find a strong return on investment. Based on our usability research, we can significantly enhance most college and university websites. Our analysis revealed that majority of these sites fall well short of the usability standards anticipated today.
Who cares about usability? What about computer adept students? Even if you seek smart candidates, many potential undergraduates lack research skills and haven't had the advantage of a college degree. They can utilise computers but aren't necessarily proficient at sophisticated tactics like query reformulation and are sometimes confused by insider lingo full of unfamiliar phrases and notions.
In any event, it is an actual reality that many prospective students are upset or hindered by the common usability issues on university websites. The greatest university websites are simple to navigate and communicate plainly to prospective students. Rest fail.
Our Universitry website maintenance guidelines
01
Identify your university on every page
Every page should display your college or university's name. Remember that not everyone visits your homepage; many reach through search. Particularly for subsites and microsites, viewers must know which institution they are seeing. Although you may be aware that your institution has a College of Commerce, others may not be. You help people recognise you by displaying your entire institution name prominently on each site (not just in the bottom). The brand relationship with particular department pages and subsites may be strengthened as a result.
02
Enhance your About Us page
The About Us page is one of the most visited by potential students. Sadly, many university websites squander this chance, with content that is uninteresting, uninformative, and generic marketese. Many universities have unsatisfactory About Us websites (our average satisfaction rating was 4.6 on a scale of 1–7), but that's no excuse. We Improve this page by introducing your college/school. We write a simple summary with a fact list. We may create an impression by showing a film that shows your institution and appeals to a wide variety of viewers.
03
Use images that represent your university's values
Visitors appreciate your institution depending on the photos you use. Viewers notice a concentration on sports in these photographs. A video collection with identical thumbnails of people: consumers sense a lack of variety. When choosing photographs, we consider what each one says individually and together. Users can discern between real and stock photographs. Stock photographs typically prompt comments about the school being dull or uninspired. Users want photographs that appear real and reflect what it's like to be at your school. “Visually, it appears like it's not about stealing your money,” a user said in one of our experiments. You will get a degree and be proud of it. We see a lot of happy individuals doing happy things.
04
Highlight your accomplishments and strengths
Visitors to a new university want to discover what makes your institution unique. We make those stats, rankings, and prizes easily accessible (for example, on your About Us page). We know consumers skim pages, seldom reading whole content. We don't bury vital facts in lengthy, thick paragraphs. Text walls don't operate effectively on the main, school, or department websites.
On a departmental website, a participant noted, “There are too many words above the ranking.” Why not put it at the top of the page?” Above-the-fold content has a smaller interaction cost, so that's where to start. But rankings might be lower if they are visible while skimming the page.
05
Make it simple to view a list of majors and programmes
Prospective students do Not look institutions or colleges, but majors and programmes. In our study, 48% of users were unaware that the institution offered the curriculum they sought. People didn't know which schools provided particular degrees, so when they couldn't discover a programme they anticipated, they thought it wasn't available. We allow users to browse all majors and programmes rather than forcing them to guess. We group programmes by field or school, but make sure the degree names are visible.
06
Link to job placement information from the alumni area of the website
Investing in education is a major priority for both students and parents when assessing institutions. During our study, visitors proceeded to the Alumni page, which they linked with everything post-college. Universities should disclose statistics on what their alumni do after graduation, including figures and sources. The university's About Us, Admissions, and/or Career Center websites should at least link to employment placement statistics. If your university lacks this data, start collecting it today.
07
Expect consumers to look for your institution on other sites
When visitors to your site can't find what they're searching for, they become frustrated and seek elsewhere. Teenagers, lacking in research abilities, are ready to resort to external sources for answers. They may utilise college aggregator sites to learn about your institution. They are also wary of anything that seems generic or like a sales pitch. They may also crowdsource knowledge by asking other students on popular question-and-answer sites. A powerful internal search engine may help reduce this, but also ensure that the other sites' content is reliable and current.
08
Check the major responsibilities for each of your audiences
We identify the main tasks you want your users to do and follow their route to completion. We find out whether they must depart the worldwide site. See whether they are shuffled between offices looking for a form or process. Keep an eye out. University sites are frequently vast, with each department or office having its own page and content. Follow the adventure from various places and see what you discover. Test your personalities if you have any. Do some short user testing. (Testing need not be costly. 85% of faults may be found by testing with only 5 people.
09
Avoid making your website cool
Not all teens and college-aged students love trendy language or engagement. Students are aware of the high expenses of schooling. They take it seriously, and they expect you to too. Using fancy labels or flashy interactions without content isn't pleasant, and it wastes your users' time. We focus on providing age-appropriate information that is simple to utilise. Allowing your pupils to speak is a terrific method to speak their language. Student-created content is more conversational, engaging, and real. As a bonus, we show your students that you appreciate their opinions and trust their judgement.
10
Indicate the application deadlines and describe the application procedure in detail
Inquire about the application deadline and you may hear a dreadful sigh. In our study, students commonly complained difficulty finding the application deadline. We place the dates in the text of the Admissions or Apply (or similar) page. If there are several or complex deadlines, we consider a separate Deadlines page. In any case, identify it clearly and prominently.
We realise universities have limited resources and difficult to manage locations. But you may start assessing and improving immediately. Based on the research of various universities we can help you to maintain the university websites as per the guidelines mentioned above.
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