University website design is perhaps an essential and most significant component of any education marketing plan. The design, the ease of navigation, and the outline of the website decides how long the user will stay and the action he/she might take. So, the website should be designed in such a way that motivates people to visit the website, keep them hooked as well as drive users to take appropriate action and find out answers for their problems. However, an effective and appealing website is designed by defining appropriate goals, preferences and habits of the visitors.
University websites must have all the required functionality and appropriate information to attract people belonging to different domains including alumni, future students and donors. However, university website designs are often complex but for a reason. A well-curated website will not only attract existing and potential users, but will motivate them to visit the website frequently and stay for a longer period of time and interact with university representatives often. However, to build an aesthetical and effective website, the website design for university must include these 10 aspects:
- Creating and influencing buyer personas:
This is perhaps one of the most critical factors especially for students and donors who are looking for effective and updated content. And one of the effective ways of doing this is to give names to your personas. This should be followed by a detailed explanation for the user needs, reason for donating, and various ways of engaging users. However, it is important to make these personas very accurate that represent the target audiences.
- Interactive designs:
Defining and keeping target audiences is important in designing university websites. You need to define how your users will get to your website. Identify how your users will access your website. Some users use desktop and laptops whereas some use tablets, smartphones, and other electronic devices to access the internet. Hence, you require a website design which can be accessed and is portable with every format. In simple words, different website elements including texts, graphics, images, and other elements are aligned and arranged to fit in every format that appeals to every user.
- White space:
One of the mistakes that many university websites often do is overfill their website with lots of texts, graphics, and other elements to ensure users get all the required information as much as possible in a single visit. Although providing all the required information on a single screen can be a good strategy, it does have a negative impact on the overall user experience.
The users will not be sure where and how to navigate across the page finding right information among visual chaos which in turn will force users to leave the page. This visual clutter can have a major impact than any other design flow, turning off prospects from the website itself. Best university website design makes sure they leave plenty of whte spaces wherever required. This allows their users to navigate the page effectively and efficiently. The white spaces can be created simply by leaving some padding between images and by enhancing the line-height of each paragraph.
- An intriguing website:
Best university website design always makes sure to enhance their user experience through aligning website features with the needs of the users. A clean and aligned texts and images and organized titles, navigation bar, and a consistent page layout will help the users to orient themselves with the content and website itself.
One such method is to ensure your headings and important information are highlighted to help and deliver your users the main purpose of your page. At the same time, it is of utmost importance to keep design and content consistent across all the pages and websites. Different content, images, and other elements can be distinguished through use of different color schemes, however you need to make sure to align it with the page layout. After all, your website should help your users understand where to click.
Another important aspect that a best university website design has is consistent tone across. However, the tone may differ depending on the characteristics of target audiences. For instance, for donors or alumni, a sophisticated and more professional tone is required whereas a less formal tone can be used for prospective students. But it is important to ensure that the overall tone should be aligned with the tone of the website.
- Dynamic content:
Another way to enhance website design for university is to create and deliver personalized experiences to your users. For instance, Amazon shows content (products and product categories) to their users based on their previous visits and interaction on their website.
The best website designs for university make use of exclusive and intensive dynamic content that caters to unique needs of their users besides offering personalized experience. This will not only drive traffic to the website, but also ensure visitors stay on university websites for a longer time with repeated frequent visits.
- Crisp and easy navigation:
Another aspect which is crucial for any university website design is ease of navigation, helping users to navigate through pages seamlessly. This can be done by either using Nested navigation that allows users to keep track of their steps by organizing content based on hierarchy and section, whereas breadcrumb navigation allows users to retrace all the steps or activities across the website. Be it any navigation form, you need to make sure that your website doesn’t complicate things for your users.
One of the ways to do so is to separate and differentiate navigation menus, allowing users to easily identify them, and then describing the same in user-friendly language, making it easier for them to understand each link and the consequent page. Similarly, you can create and implement a streamlined navigation pathway that leads your users to larger departments or sections across your page.
- CTA (call to action) buttons:
Just like navigation and white spaces, the best website design for university should have appropriate CTA’s, guiding your users to the next set of pages and actions such as form or academic calendar or curriculum. CTA buttons are an effective way to highlight and stand out from other content on the website. These CTA’s should be attractive and appealing which intrigues the interest of users to go on the next steps.
- Landing pages:
If you want to drive traffic to your pages or attract the attention of your prospect audience, all you need is a well-designed and simple landing page. However, the design requirements of landing pages depend on characteristics of your users. For instance, if you’re designing landing pages for prospective students, the design needs to be simple and efficient, whereas if you design the same for donors, it needs to be more sophisticated and complex.
Create a well-designed landing page with an appropriate call to action button that is specifically targeted towards your audience, taking them to their desired destination across the website. The content across these pages should be clear, crisp, informative, and engaging.
- Engaging content:
You will be able to enhance the overall experience of your users, if you have engaging and interactive content. Users generate responses and take necessary actions when they visit university websites and navigate through them. Hence, having interactive content and graphics will intrigue users to click on links, taking them across different sections of the website. However, you shouldn't crowd your website with interactions which otherwise can have negative consequences.
- Social media handles and interactions:
To keep your users engaged with your website, you need to incorporate social media into your blogs and pages, which is a common practice among best university websites.
For instance, you can deep link your website to your social media handles. Besides, you can add share buttons to your post and blogs, allowing users to share across social media platforms.
To conclude, the perception of your users depends upon how your university website is designed and how you interact with your users. This is particularly important in the 21st century where graphics, animations, and designs define traffic and interest of your users. Hence, a well-thought out approach should be given in designing and creating your university website which will define how and when your users will interact and take necessary actions.