Since summer 2025, websites across the university have been going online with a new, mobile-optimised design as part of the Websites25 project. As one of the pilot sites, the ZID website will relaunch by the end of the year.
The IT Communications & Marketing team manages the ZID website and is responsible for the relaunch at the ZID. It is using this opportunity to restructure the content, present it clearly in the new design and fundamentally revise the most frequently visited pages.
Geared towards user needs: evaluation as a basis
Is the home page clear? Are the user guides easy to follow? In order to better understand user needs and create a well-founded revision concept, feedback was gathered from students and employees using several methods:
- Survey: How satisfied are users with the ZID web pages? What changes would they like to see?
- Card sorting: Which services belong thematically together from the users’ point of view?
- Usability tests: How easy do users find the user guides on the ZID website? How helpful are the optimised user guides that were tested?
- Website metrics: Which ZID websites are visited frequently? How far do users scroll on a web page? Which links are clicked on most and where?
More than just modern design: optimised content, structure and navigation
The relaunch is not just a (design) technical advancement. Based on the feedback, the IT Communications & Marketing team is optimising the home page, the menu structure and the most frequently visited service pages and user guides (such as Wi‑Fi and e-mail service):
Home page, menu structure
- The home page is clear, as compact as possible and makes the most frequently used services quickly accessible
- New and intuitively understandable categories (such as Research or Communication, collaboration) complement the tried-and-tested categories for better findability
“Since the last relaunch of the ZID website, several new IT services have been added. Some of them did not fit optimally into the existing categories,” explains Doris Maierhofer, who is coordinating the relaunch. As part of a card sortingstudy, users were therefore asked to organise the IT services into a structure that made sense to them. The results of the study are being incorporated into the new menu structure.
Most visited service pages
- Concise introductions explain what the service is and who can use it
- All user guides are listed directly on the service page to save clicks
- Content is shortened or moved to subpages and formatted in a reader-friendly way, for example with bullet points
On the last point, Doris Maierhofer explains: “Website users have a reputation for only scanning texts instead of reading them in full. This has been confirmed in usability tests with students and employees.” The aim for all texts relating to IT services is therefore to reduce them to the essentials and to use a layout that supports quick comprehension of content.
Most visited user guides
- Precise page titles, descriptive URLs and a prominent table of contents show users what to expect in the guide
- Brief user guides (for experts) and basic user guides (for beginners) appeal to users with different levels of technical knowledge
- (Numbered) bullet points and subheadings provide more structure
Coming soon
The new website will make the IT service information of the ZID easier to find, understand, and navigate. The IT Communications & Marketing team of the ZID looks forward to welcoming you to the new website soon!