University's website – Wittenborg

Objective

Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences needed a website redesign. The website was built on an outdated theme and its homepage was overloaded with many content blocks and clickable elements that hindered students’ user journey. In addition, the interface wasn’t mobile-friendly and the website’s search engine wasn’t optimized with the best UX & UI practices in mind.

Our objective was to make the website mobile-friendly and ensure its smooth performance on every device, so we relied on the PageSpeed insights (Lighthouse) tool in our work.

Challenges

Apart from obsolete design and poor optimization for mobile devices, the website encountered a minor inconvenience with an embedded YouTube video, which was restricted in certain locations due to YouTube policies.

Also, the university experienced several content management issues:

Content and layout elements were mixed. Layout elements were mixed with content in the HTML editor, making it challenging to separate content from the presentation. Sometimes the layout could be accidentally disrupted during content updates.

To add more, the website didn’t rely on any dependency management tool, so all the modules, updates, and code libraries had to be managed manually, which was time-consuming and error-prone.

Technologies

Solution

By introducing responsive images and videos, improving banners for better performance on mobile devices, and using other mobile-first design best practices, we managed to receive high website performance scores and pass the Core Web Vitals assessment.

The biggest changes were introduced to the homepage. We decided to make it more marketing-oriented to help the university better recruit students and improve their user journey. Namely, we eliminated excessive elements, created clear CTA buttons and placed them prominently across the page, and added interactive elements for visual appeal. This resulted in a neat-looking homepage with straightforward navigation that offers a seamless user journey.

To improve the user journey even further, we introduced UI & UX improvements to the search engine. Now it works smoothly and suggests relevant information for search queries, ensuring students and applicants can find what they seek. 

To simplify content managers' work, we switched several pages to a paragraph-based structure, allowing them to edit them independently. We also rebuilt several pages and content types to avoid mixing layout and content elements in HTML editors.

To streamline the work with the modules, updates, and code libraries, it was decided to transition the website to a composer-based architecture. Our team installed and configured Composer, facilitating package management, dependency resolution, version control, website updates, and other dependency management processes.

Instead of time-consuming and error-prone manual management, the Wittenborg team can rely on a valuable tool that simplifies and automates these critical website maintenance tasks.

Project Features

As a result of our efforts, the Wittenborg team received a website with:

• Improved mobile UX and smooth desktop and mobile device performance confirmed by high Lighthouse scores.
• Accurate search engine that provides relevant information, helping students and applicants quickly find the information they are interested in.
• Composer-based architecture that simplifies and automates dependency management processes.
• Marketing-oriented, attractive, and interactive homepage that converts visitors into students.
• Simplified content management without issues.
• Good performance in every target country.

The joint effort of our team resulted in a quality website that fully meets the university’s needs and requirements.
 

Testimonials