On 1 November, the design of AU’s external website au.dk will change. The aim is to produce a more intuitive user experience for the university's primary target groups - i.e. future students, researchers from other universities, and business partners.

2016.10.26 | Mette Helm

A new top menu bar, a renewed graphic design and a more target group-oriented layout are some of the most significant changes in the new layout for au.dk, the university's external website.

A strong focus on recruitment of talented students, clear access points for the university’s external audiences and easy access to information about the university’s researchers and academic units. These are some of the main elements of the new design which will be launched on au.dk on 1 November.

The large graphics section at the top of the website will have a new format and will be used for recruitment activities. Therefore, the field will point to AU’s degree programmes for potential Bachelor’s degree students, Master’s degree students and PhD students as well as to continuing and further education activities for potential course participants.

A new top menu bar, a renewed graphic design and a more target group-oriented layout are some of the most significant changes. Currently, the top menu bar provides access to the university’s four portals for research, education, talent development and knowledge exchange. The research and education portals will continue as independent websites with a strong focus on the quality of the university’s academic activities.

The knowledge exchange portal will be renamed to ‘Collaboration’ and will focus more on the university’s collaboration with private and public enterprises – the good experiences from ongoing projects as well as the opportunities for entering into new collaboration agreements with business and industry as well as the public sector.

Access to the university’s talent development website aimed at recruiting PhD students will be integrated into the two portals for research and development. This means that talent development will no longer have its own tab on the top menu bar.

In addition to shortcuts to medarbejdere.au.dk, studerende.au.dk and phd.au.dk, the top menu bar will also contain easy access to the library and an overview of the university’s departments, schools, and faculties.

The design is based on an analysis of the users’ so-called top tasks – i.e. the primary tasks which the users access our website to solve.

The new design is also being implemented on the departments’ and centres’ external websites – for example at the Department of Geoscience. The implementation is coordinated by the faculties’ web editors and takes place on an ongoing basis until 31 March 2017. The design of AU’s internal websites for students and staff will not be changed.

The new design is one of more results from the extensive work to improve the university’s web solutions for students, staff and external stakeholders. The university’s internal as well as external audiences have requested improved search functionality on AU’s websites. This is an extensive task which is managed by a separate project for subsequent implementation.