In early summer 2025 we will start to roll out a major update to the look of the University of York website. This will align the website with the University’s updated brand identity, which has been appearing across other channels over the last few years. It also gives us an opportunity to apply expertise and insights from within the Communications team to significantly improve the layout of pages and navigation around the site. The initial launch will focus on content published from the Web CMS.
Phase two of the IT web rebuild project was a complex and rewarding piece of the puzzle. Working closely with stakeholders, we delivered a new Tools, software and services section – spanning over 160 web pages which went live at the end of September.
As part of the ongoing project to rebuild academic department web pages, we’ve been working to enhance departmental content about equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).
A collaborative approach
Through collaborating with several departments over the past couple of years, as well as the Equality and Diversity Office, we’ve made significant strides in improving how departmental EDI content is presented.
It’s not always been easy to find a solution that meets everyone’s needs, but through persistence and collaboration we believe we’ve found a neat approach which solves a few pieces of the EDI puzzle.
Content audit and insights
As part of our discovery work, we did a content audit to assess what we have now. Our audit revealed several challenges:
Duplication of central support: Many departmental EDI pages replicate central support information, leading to duplication, scattered content and confusing user journeys.
Low engagement: Numerous EDI pages across departments have low traffic and engagement, with opportunities to merge and streamline content for better visibility and usability.
Content quality variability: EDI content often focuses on commitment statements rather than concrete department examples, lacking strong imagery, quotes, or case studies which “show” rather than “tell.”
Balancing the needs of internal and external audiences: Content mixes messaging for internal and external audiences, causing a lack of clear focus.
The impact of these issues means that it is more difficult to highlight unique departmental contributions. Plus we are creating a lot of extra work and confusing search results by duplicating content that already exists elsewhere.
Improving central pages
To start addressing these issues, we focused on improving central EDI pages for staff and students. Our aim was to develop a pair of comprehensive central resources for staff and students that departments can consistently signpost to, reducing duplication across departmental pages.
The improved pages have a clear and comprehensive overview of the EDI-related support across the University. They help to ensure that users can easily find essential EDI resources in one central location.
This means departments can direct users to the most up-to-date information without duplicating content.
A flexible framework
Building on these improvements, we’ve developed a flexible content framework for departmental EDI pages. This framework, shaped by our principles of “less is more” and “show, don’t tell,” allows departments to highlight specific examples of their EDI activity with relevant imagery and quotes from staff and students.
It provides structure but can be tailored to fit the department’s unique examples and needs. For example, departments can showcase EDI committees, student-led initiatives, and curriculum or research examples.
The primary content in the first half of the page focuses on highlighting department activities.Optional commitment statements provide a structure for departments to summarise department and University support for different communities.And finally we’ve included consistent signposting to the improved central EDI pages for staff and students, plus signposting to study, research, jobs and EDI news and events, so readers can find out more.
There is also the option to create additional subpages if a department would like to expand on an area in more detail, for example women in STEM.
Our new approach not only benefits end users by providing clearer, more accessible information but also enhances efficiency for those working on the content, reducing duplication of effort and making it easier to manage EDI resources more holistically across the website.
Audiences
The audiences for departmental EDI content encompass both external and internal stakeholders. While we typically aim to tailor content for distinct audiences, in this case, the two groups are intertwined. Targeting a dual audience fosters transparency and engagement.
External audiences may be considering working or studying here, looking for insight into the university’s commitment to EDI.
Internal audiences may want to stay informed about departmental activities, enabling them to participate or seek support.
A great example of this is information about a departmental EDI committee. While this content primarily targets an internal audience, making it publicly available demonstrates the department’s commitment to addressing EDI issues and enhances trust with external audiences, such as prospective staff or students.
Next steps
This framework is set up as a template page (staff access only) in our department template site ready for us to start working with departments to populate content.
Upcoming web rebuilds
For the next round of academic department web rebuilds, we’re reintroducing departmental EDI sections back into scope of these projects.
Rather than simply migrating existing content, we’ll collaborate with departments to redevelop their EDI content and messaging and streamline subpages using the flexible framework as a foundation.
Already worked with us on a rebuild?
For departments who we’ve already worked with on rebuild projects, we’ll collaborate over time to rebuild your EDI pages using the framework. If you’re interested in beginning this process, contact us via our web request form and we’ll schedule a suitable time.
We’ve recently launched a set of web pages to help staff lead projects at York. This was a collaborative effort working with the University’s central Project Management Office.
The new Project management resources web pages provide guidance on the standard project life cycle at York, from concept through to handover and close. The pages are published in the main staff section of the University website to maximise visibility and discoverability of the information.
Audience and aims
The pages are for:
seasoned project managers who do this as their day job
leaders and managers who are running projects and might be less familiar with project management.
The purpose of the resources are to:
offer a central repository for project management resources and templates
help guide staff through the process of managing a change or project.
Job stories
It was tricky figuring out how to structure these new project management resources alongside the change management pages in the same section.
Both sets of resources are based on three main phases of change (plan, implement and embed). We needed to think about how the user journeys intersected and where the project life cycle phases would fit in.
We worked with our Project Management Office stakeholders to write something called job stories for the resources. These helped ensure we were on the same page about who and what the resources are for. They helped us understand how best to present content. They also helped clarify the stakeholders’ thinking.
Here are a couple of examples:
When a leader asks me how long the project will take…
I want to know the processes and resources I can use to work this out.
So I can provide them with a project schedule, including key milestones.
When I am working on project or change
I want to access trusted and tested approaches.
So that I know we are working to recommended practice.
Website structure
We considered merging the new resources within the phases of change pages. But after creating the job stories, it was clear we needed a distinct section to help guide staff on project management specifically. The information has crossovers but different user needs.
The change management resources support leaders with behavioural and softer skills around supporting teams through change.
The project management resources provide methodologies and document templates for running a project or change.
We also renamed the parent section ‘Project and change management’ to improve clarity. It was originally called ‘Making change happen’, which is now the strapline instead.
Content
Cheryl, our main stakeholder in the Project Management Office, had compiled the resources in a slide deck and a spreadsheet with all the document templates. This was repurposed into a set of web pages. These include:
A main introduction page, with an overview of project types and definitions, eg small projects, large projects and business as usual (BAU).
I recently wrapped up a great project rebuilding our web pages about campus. This job was a joy to do because it allowed me to focus on many different forms of content – video and imagery proved just as important as copy to show (rather than tell) what our campus has to offer.
Why a refresh?
The campus section is a high-traffic section, with the campus landing page racking up over 11,000 annual page views. However, most pages were using our older Classic templates and the content and imagery was out of date. Some content was also duplicated elsewhere on the website and many of the pages hadn’t been updated in recent years.
A much needed refresh was in order to better ‘sell’ York’s beautiful green campus.
Purpose, audience and streamlining
Mixed audience groups for these pages proved an exciting challenge. The users for these pages included prospective students, members of the public, and our community of current staff and students.
The purpose of the pages is to provide a high-level overview of what campus has to offer, covering amenities through to wildlife and art. We reviewed the pages and usage data and decided we could streamline the section from 30 pages to 24.
Celebrating our campus with visual content
We’ve got a treasure trove of beautiful visual content of our green, open campus. The use of video and imagery was key to creating engaging pages that worked hard to show what campus has to offer.
I created a hero video for the landing page using both drone footage and close-up video clips to highlight different aspects of campus – lakes, wildlife, greenery and our iconic brutalist buildings.
The landing page hero video
A ‘campus photo highlights’ section on the landing page shows off a number of key landmarks and places to see on campus, such as Isaac Newton’s apple tree, growing in a courtyard garden within the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, and the Quiet Place, an area of stillness and quiet in the grounds of Heslington Hall.
Working with stakeholders
As with any content project, I didn’t do it alone. I worked with stakeholders in the Directorate of Technology, Estates and Facilities (DTEF) and Marketing, Recruitment, Admissions and Outreach (MRAO) to make sure the content was accurate and on message.
Tidying up
To help keep our campus pages fresh and up to date, I’ve created a quality assurance and content governance model – on the University wiki (staff only) outlining how the pages would be kept up-to-date and by whom.
In this major revamp, we’re making IT Services’ web pages easier to use. As well as being some of our most popular sets of internal pages, they’re also super complex. We’ve gone back to the drawing board to investigate what users really want.
This is my first time posting on this blog so I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m Harriet 👋. I’m part of the Content Design Team in Communications. As a web content developer, it’s my job to design and transform online content. I started at the University last year specifically to work on rebuilding the IT Services web pages. I’m leading this highly collaborative project, working alongside the IT Services team and others to plan and deliver an improved experience.
What’s it all about?
Every single member of York uses IT services. From email to wifi, there are hundreds of tools and systems enabling us to work, study and research. For every one of those, there’s usually at least a web page or two. And as you might expect from a technical service, there’s also a lot of guidance, such as how to access a system or how to troubleshoot issues with it.
Across the IT Services section alone, we’re talking over 600 pages of content. But that’s not all. We discovered more IT content across three other sections of the University website. Plus, beyond our Web CMS, we found IT-related content over eight other web platforms such as Salesforce, Google Sites and LibGuides. Before anything else, we needed to scrutinise what categories of content should be published where and why. This helps us be consistent about what we publish and where, and decide what should stay and what should go. After that, it was time to map the rebuild for the CMS side of things.
The IT Services section of the website is home to some of our most viewed internal-facing pages, receiving over 1 million views a year. Despite its popularity, years of growth were taking a toll. The bloated content was hard to navigate and maintain, and the older ‘Classic’ templates looked tired. To help staff and students find the services and support they need, we had to change that. Cue the content strategy!
Content strategy toolkit
Here in the Content Design Team, we love to plan. It can feel a little daunting but a good plan is vital for mapping out changes, juggling priorities and keeping track of what’s important. Here are some of the tools and techniques which helped us get from planning content to publishing it:
Content audit – a listing of all web pages in scope. We used it to assess content quality, measure analytics performance, and plan next steps.
Competitor analysis – we reviewed 13 competitors and industry leaders to spot trends and best practices.
Stakeholder interviews – we met with 20 colleagues in IT Services to understand departmental needs first-hand.
Steering group – we scheduled a regular catch-up with key stakeholders every three weeks. This proximity helped resolve queries, set actions and move the project along.
Content mapping – we led a workshop with stakeholders to understand content categories, where each should be published and why.
User research studies – we undertook user testing of our pages and competitors, using heat mapping tools and tree testing to test our new navigation menu and labels. The findings helped us plan effortless, logical designs.
Site structure mapping – we used a mind mapping tool to plan the new site hierarchy and review content relationships.
Focus days – we scheduled whole days for content planning, giving us dedicated time for deep focus and collaboration.
Feedback rounds – once drafted, stakeholders and web specialists vetted the content over several feedback rounds. They checked for accuracy and helped finesse the content.
Governance plan – to help maintain content, we’ve confirmed information providers and approvers (IPAs) for every branch section and we’ve documented the process for requesting edits. To learn more, see the governance plan (staff only).
Putting plans into action
Because this is a complicated project with lots to unpick, we’re rolling out the changes in phases. The first of which went live in February. Here’s a rundown of the five big wins to give you a flavour of all things new and shiny so far 🤩.
1. Simple navigation
Reduced the navigation menu from 21 items to just seven to help make information easier to find.
New labels separate the key strands of IT Services’ content. They avoid overlap between the sections, helping everyone to take confident next steps.
Bookmarked the start and end of the navigation menu with the most important sections: ‘Guides and help’ and ‘Contact us’. These both lead to self-service guidance and how to get support, which are core user needs.
Rebuilt all phase one pages using the Digital Pattern Library web templates.
Added sleek and vibrant graphics, designed by our in-house Creative team.
3. Clearer user journeys
Supported by the simplified navigation, we’ve built two new signposting pages. These work by chunking the content into themes and making the site easier to navigate. On them, you’ll find collections of popular and important content.
In Guides and help, you can find solutions to the most common queries, regardless of whether they are published on the CMS or another platform.
In Tools, software and services, you can find digital tools and support to enhance your work, study and research. We’ve also implemented a searchable table, so you can quickly find what you need, rather than scrolling through a very long list.
You’ll also find signposts at the end of most of the newly launched pages, which lead to related content.
4. Simple contact information
IT queries can often be time-sensitive and therefore stressful. Think log-in issues or misbehaving technology amidst a looming deadline. Being able to contact IT Services is crucial.
In our content audit, we discovered multiple web pages with contact information. Each of them slightly different. To make it clear and simple, we needed to streamline and tackle the redundant information.
Instead of duplicating the content across various pages, content now links to the contact page. Having one source of truth makes it much easier to update and helps everyone access accurate information.
Embedded a contact form to make it more efficient to request support.
Added a footer across the branch, signposting to the new contact page. It’s common practice on web pages and helps us meet expectations.
5. Get to know IT Services
In the original structure, there wasn’t anywhere to shout about the impressive projects being led by IT Services or what they do. The new About section plugs this gap. It also appeals to prospective employees who want a sense of workplace culture.
What’s next?
Phase two is another large piece of the puzzle. We’re continuing to collaborate with IT Services and rebuild more content. We’ll be designing a service catalogue (a collection of all the tools they offer in a standardised usable format) as well as working on equipment, facilities and IT accessibility web pages. We’ll iron out the details of this over the coming months, so watch this space for more shiny new content.
After phase two, we’ll be working on the IT security and training pages, and wrapping up the project.
In October, we launched a new set of web pages which bring together resources on change management for University teams. The project proved once again why content is key!
Here are the Making change happen web pages which we worked on with the People and Organisational Development (POD) team within HR.
Like all universities (and humans in general) we face changes big and small on a regular basis. These web pages and the resources they link to were compiled to help enable successful change at York.
This blog post is a quick case study of how the project went and why it went well.
The brief
First we had a solid brief to work from. In particular, we had a clear articulation of the business needs of the project from the POD team:
Increase change capability of leaders and managers
Create shared understanding of what good change looks like
Provide self-serve access to support and resources to enable good change
Being able to approach the same set of resources from different perspectives
Core user story
From those business needs, we created a user story to articulate in human terms the challenge to be solved:
“As a manager or leader at the University, I need resources to help me implement a change within my team. I need to learn about change management at my own pace. I need to know about the fundamentals of change management and/or and top up on areas I’m less familiar with.”
Outputs
From those business needs and to meet the requirements of the user story, we and POD determined the outputs would be:
A framework of change principles for York and an approach that leads teams through key components of change
A collated and curated set of resources that support development of behaviours and skills associated with change management
Web presence providing self-serve access to support and resources
Embracing the CMS
A key goal for the self-serve resources was being able to approach the same set of resources from different perspectives.
The original idea was to use fancy widgets and tagging functionality. The downside of this was that doing so would involve using another web platform (outside of our Web CMS).
This would mean it wouldn’t be part of our core website experience and would be harder to find and maintain over the long term. So we agreed sticking with the main Web CMS would be best.
Our Digital team didn’t have capacity to build any bespoke templates but we knew we could still create a good user experience with what we’ve already got, because…
Content is key
This project was all about putting content at the heart of it, by really thinking through structures and content format.
Structure planning
The resources would need to appear across two main categories initially:
Change principles– such as how to share a vision or how to nurture innovation and ideas within a team
Phases of change – relates to the phase of a change, from planning it through to embedding it into the daily life of a team
We looked at different ways we could use existing CMS content types and functionality. We decided building a hierarchy around the change categories and ‘mirroring’ the content would work well.
Sitemap
Content models
Next we developed content models. This is a structured way of presenting content.
We got really familiar with the change management resources, so we could work out how we could present them in a neat, consistent and user friendly format.
We developed models for the three types of pages we would need. Our colleagues in POD used these models to compile and create the information we needed to form the web content.
Category resources pages
The purpose of these pages is to provide the resources in a concise and easy to understand way.
Each page has a brief introduction and key factors to set the scene. Each resource is a separate piece of content in the CMS which can then be mirrored as necessary to other category pages.
These pages introduce the main categories. We’ve used panels to link to the subcategories pages where the resources are housed.
Landing page
The landing page explains what the resources are for and how to use them.
Focus day
Getting all our ducks in a row with the content planning meant the build was easy and fun!
I worked with my brilliant and super helpful colleague, Reena, to build and edit the content in the CMS. We did this all in one day. It was so good to be able to focus on one project all day. And we got it all done!
Review and sign off
After that we had one round of stakeholder feedback and then a final sign off meeting. Content changes during review and sign off were minimal, thanks in large part to the content modelling stage earlier in the process.
Our stakeholders were really pleased with the process we’d supported them through and the end result.
What’s next?
For the next phase, we’ll be working with the Strategic Planning and Performance team and IT Services to migrate more resources into the new framework we’ve developed.
We’ll also be adding short quotes and testimonials from leaders and managers who have used the resources for a change in their team. We’re looking forward to seeing these and hearing about how useful the resources are in practice.
Having recently joined Communications as Web Content Developer, I was keen to get stuck into the CMS. Luckily, one of my first tasks was to rebuild the History of the University branch on the website. For this quick turnaround project, my colleague Harriet and I had a focus day where we got the bulk of the work done. It was a super fun project and proved to be a real eye opener and a handy learning tool to get to grips with the CMS and the Digital Pattern Library (DPL) content types.
Why a rebuild?
The pages were receiving an increase in traffic due to the University’s 60th anniversary. The content was in legacy Classic templates and we didn’t have a page for the 2010s. It was a timely moment for an update.
Getting started
On our focus day we migrated the existing content into DPL templates. We made minimal changes to the content itself, but moving the pages over to DPL allowed us to rethink the layout. We decided to add prominence to the fantastic range of historic images that came from the York Digital Library, which give a real sense of each of the University’s six decades of history. The focus day proved really productive and gave Harriet and I the opportunity to bounce ideas off each other and work through problems together.
The 2010s
Once we’d migrated the old pages over, I turned my attention to creating a new page for the 2010s, sourcing content for the news archive and researching wider national trends and events in higher education for the decade. A shout out to Alex Holland, Paul Shields and Charles Fonge for helping me hunt down images for the 2010s page gallery. I’m delighted with the range of assets we uncovered.
Finishing touches
After working through some finishing touches to make the content flow in the new layouts, there was just one thing missing. We needed a hero image on the landing page to illustrate the University’s vibrant history. We went to the design team with a request to pull a range of historic images into a cohesive montage graphic. Safe to say they delivered. Thank you Sean Gee for your help and expertise with this work.
Tidying up
I’m thrilled with how the new pages have turned out and the project has helped me quickly get to grips with the CMS in a ‘learning by doing’ way (which is my favourite way to learn). Looking ahead, future updates to the branch have been scheduled into our new web editorial calendar in Asana and a governance plan has been put in place.
We’re about to complete the pilot phase of our big project to work with all academic departments to update their web pages to new templates and optimised content. Here’s an update on what we’ve done so far and what’s coming next.
