The new, more user-friendly research and study content will start to be moved to the new university website today (Monday 11 July). Over the past year the Digital User Experience (DUX) team has been developing and building content into new designs to improve the experience users have with our website and the way they interact with us online.
A large-scale, pre-launch, testing exercise showed the new web pages are performing exceptionally well, enabling real users to navigate and find content more easily and to complete key tasks more quickly.
As a result, from Monday 11 July 2022, the University will start to roll out the new content across the new version of the website, giving our users a much better experience.
This a significant milestone for what is an extremely complex project, which has involved consultation with our academic community and other stakeholders.
What the testing told us
The testing exercise involved external users trying to complete real world tasks. There were more than 11,000 visits to the site, allowing the DUX team to assess the accessibility, performance and functionality of a range of new pages including Staff Profiles, research centres, study pages and overall site navigation. The exercise gave the DUX team a high volume of valuable data into user journeys, usability, engagement and completion rates for specific tasks.
It showed the website is working well with its new design, with a high score (4 out of 5) for user satisfaction and ‘Good’ rating for usability, which is a major improvement on the performance of our previous website.
What content is moving to the new site structure?
From today, the DUX team will transition the new content to the new site structure.
This includes:
- New staff profiles – Our university is all about our people, so these pages are fundamental to the success of our digital offering. The new staff profile pages are interconnected with course information and research and enterprise content, to clearly show which staff are involved in which activities.
- Research pages – The projects, groups, centres and institutes pages have been created to improve the way content is displayed and linked.
- Facilities pages – The facilities pages have been improved to better showcase our world class facilities to prospective research and enterprise partners and business prospects.
- Our Impact pages – These pages tell the story of our University’s impact on the world in a way that reflects how our users consume and engage with the content and the details which matter most to them.
- PGR pages – Improvements have been made to PGR course pages to make it far easier for prospective PGR students to find in-depth information about our PGR offer and how and where they can apply.
- ‘Study at’ pages – These pages are now a single source of rich, easy to find information for each subject area, allowing users to explore in detail what it’s like to study their subject of interest at Southampton.
- New navigation and architecture – The way the information is pieced together and presented, including using best practice for accessibility, will provide a seamless experience so users will find what they are looking for with ease.
- About our University section – This includes all the organisational detail and information (faculties, schools, governance, compliance etc.)
What you will see from today (Monday 11 July)
When the site goes live, you will see content across the new pages, which is now more user-friendly, with improvements to how information is linked with other pages.
Some areas of the site will be more populated than others, which could be due to pending requests for updated content. We are currently running a fact-checking exercise with faculties, and also trying to find source information that was not available on the previous websites.
Certain pages on the new website may also link to content on the old websites. As the project continues to move forward, this and other areas of the website will be updated, and the DUX Team will work with relevant colleagues within our community to implement these improvements.
If you see any problems on the website, you can use this change request form to get your issue to the DUX Team, who will respond as soon as possible.
What happens next?
Over the next six months, the DUX Team, iSolutions, RIS Systems and Faculty Operating Services will work together to continuously improve the website: Their priorities will be:
- Urgently deal with factual accuracy issues
- Respond to external users’ feedback by priority
- Deal with critical issues raised by University stakeholders by priority
- Address known-technical improvements for accessibility and user experience
- Develop more efficient and comprehensive data and content for research groups, centres and institutes pages, starting with a small-scale pilot exercise that will allow all remaining groups, centres and institutes to transition to the new platform
- Increase the number and type of research projects and staff profiles that can be featured on the website
- Continue to support key digital recruitment activities including clearing, scholarships, welcome.
- Explore areas of content where publishing could be devolved locally
Further reading:
The principles behind the design of the new products
Digital User Experience blog
Fact checking activity
Create your new staff profile
Research projects guidance
