Renewed University of Turku
Education
Nominee
Case description
University of Turku is an active academic community of 25,000 students and employees. Above all, it is a multidisciplinary and international research university in the heart of Turku.Wunder created a new site with Drupal 8 and made extensive integrations: The site provides information on researchers' areas of expertise and research publications from the University's Converis Research Information System. The Konsta event management system and the Qbank external image bank were also integrated. Qbank integration is a particularly welcome feature as the content creator is able to add images from an external image bank using the Drupal interface. Similarly, one can paste and download images from the Drupal interface.
Particular attention was paid to the logic of the content and navigation: Clear descriptions of the courses are available and can be browsed by category. The site also brings together the university's diverse forms of business cooperation and service.
The actual project phase ended around the Midsummer of 2018, from which Wunder continued the continuous development until the launch of the site on November 28, 2018. The University of Turku wanted to ensure that there was enough time for content production and site finishing before publication. This is one of the reasons for a really successful project.
Case goals and results
The new website was intended to showcase the university's diverse research, activities, and educational opportunities as clearly as possible. The site must be mobile-friendly and user-oriented.Eventually, the University of Turku's website renewal became a success. The university received a site, which was designed with a user-centric and mobile-first mentality.
Research at the University of Turku was highlighted and the site has distinct sections for different user groups: student, research and business cooperation. This makes the new site significantly different from its predecessor.
The site also meets the strict AA level requirements of the EU Accessibility Directive (WCAG 2.0), so the project goals were achieved in this respect as well.
It's no wonder that the project has been described as the best site renewal in the history of the University of Turku.
Challenges
The project was based on redesigning the university's public website to match the new branding, meet the requirements of the EU Accessibility Directive, and clearly serve end users.An additional challenge to the project was the business objectives defined by the University of Turku: The site was intended to attract potential students and employees to the university, increase collaboration between the university and companies and improve the attractiveness of Turku as a student city, also internationally. In addition, the beta version should be available for internal use by the university as soon as possible after the project starts.