Go to Rhine-Waal University
Hello and welcome!
Our university’s new website will not simply be a replica of the old one. Our aim is to offer all visitors an improved user experience: we want you to find content more quickly and immediately recognise what sets our university apart. The navigation should be user-friendly and intuitive.
This guide will help you achieve these goals.
Think of your readers
Your page(s) should appeal to a variety of target audiences, particularly students, prospective students, researchers and those seeking further training. These groups should always be at the forefront of your mind when creating content.
The following tips will help you address your target audience(s) effectively:
- Tailored to your audience: With every sentence, ask yourself: “What does my audience want to know?” And provide clear, unambiguous answers.
- Simple language: Write in a way that is easy to understand, so that even readers without prior knowledge can grasp the content. Tip: Explain complex terms using concrete examples.
- Conveying specialist knowledge: As a research-intensive university with a strong research profile, you should present your research topics in such a way that both academic colleagues and interested members of the public can understand them.
- Read your text aloud: This helps to identify ambiguities or awkward phrasing. Also ask colleagues or students to take a look at the text to gain new perspectives.
Take a broader view of your university
Users of the new website should be able to access the information they need quickly and directly, without having to navigate through the various departments, institutes and faculties. All editors are asked to adapt their approach accordingly. Assume that your target audience is not familiar with your university’s internal structures or specific abbreviations. Instead, consider: What terms or categories would my target audience intuitively use to find the information they are looking for?
All institutes and departments represent our university! Therefore, the design and structure should be consistent and coherent across all areas. Make sure to establish thematic links and ensure that links to relevant sections are clear and easily accessible to users.
Online text design
With these four tips, you can design your pages so that they are both appealing and encourage readers to stay longer:
- Use active language: Avoid passive constructions and address your readers directly. Express yourself clearly and precisely, particularly on pages visited by prospective students and current students.
- Text structure: Ensure your text is clearly structured by using paragraphs, visual highlights such as bold text, and punctuation such as colons and hyphens. This makes the key message clearer and more accessible to the relevant target audience.
- Use of photos and graphics: Images can often say more than words. You should therefore make targeted use of high-quality, meaningful photos and graphics to visually support your content and make the text more engaging.
- Call to action: Encourage your readers to take action by including clear calls to action, such as a button with the prompt ‘Apply now!’
Salutation, style and layout
Our Senate has adopted guidelines for gender-inclusive language.
Accordingly, the language used on the website should be gender-neutral and in line with the principles of diversity, for example by using terms such as ‘teachers’. Where this is not possible, the university has agreed to use the colon in its spelling, for example in the form of ‘scientists:’.
You can find the guidelines on gender-inclusive writing here:
When addressing our audience, we tailor our approach to the specific target groups. As a general rule, prospective students and current students are addressed directly. In the sections on "Studying" and "Interest in studying", the informal "you" form is used (e.g. "You can find further information here."). We also speak from a personal perspective (e.g. "Which Degree programme is right for me?").
All other target groups, such as academics, interest groups and the general public, are addressed using the formal “Sie” form.
Always write out terms in full the first time they are mentioned and include the abbreviation in brackets. You may then use the abbreviation thereafter. This rule applies to all organisations and institutions.
When referring to academic staff, use their first name and surname, as well as their academic title where applicable (e.g. “Prof. Dr. Maximilia Musterfrau” or “AR Max Mustermann”).
Tip: Use only unambiguous abbreviations to avoid misunderstandings (e.g. for the Summer semester, use “SoSe” instead of “SS”).
Make your pages as accessible as possible: for example, when you upload images, always include alternative text. Also, ensure you follow the heading hierarchy (H2, H3, H4) so that accessibility software works as effectively as possible.
Tip: The “Eye-Able” tool makes the new homepage even more accessible and inclusive. Give the tool a try – you’ll find it on the right-hand side of the screen once the site goes live. Until then, you can get an idea of what it’s like at https://eye-able.com/de.
When using images, please observe the following rules and guidelines:
- The image source and copyright holder must be stated every time (e.g. press).
- Please use colour photos rather than black-and-white images. This applies in particular to your personal profile.
- Do not use stock photos; instead, use authentic photos of our university.
- The Press Office provides general photographic material of our buildings and campus life.
- For further existing photos, please contact the project management team.
- For specific photography requests (e.g. from your Department), a contact person will be available from February 2025.
- Ensure your images are up to date and replace them regularly if necessary.
- We recommend that you create a separate folder in TYPO3 for your Department’s images and upload them there.
[A link to this process will be available here in future]
Keywords (in TYPO3: tags) help both readers and search engines such as Google to find your page more easily! You specify a keyword or tag for each page, and this is recorded under the metadata in TYPO3. It describes the content of the page and is specific to your subject area.
Please note the following four recommendations:
- SEO entries (the title for search engines, the description and the keyword) must be maintained! You can find these in the page properties under the second tab “SEO” and the fourth tab “Metadata”.
- Specific keywords: Particularly on specialist pages, compound nouns and longer keywords (e.g. “sustainability” or “education for sustainable development”) are helpful – these are recognised by search engines and guide interested visitors to your page.
- Unique keywords: Each keyword combination should appear only once in the content of each subpage of a website. Our recommendation: Select one keyword per page and use it once as a keyword (in the “Metadata” tab) and once prominently within the actual content (see point 4)!
- There are five suitable positions for keywords within the content: 1. Title for search engines (in TYPO3 under SEO), 2. Headings, 3. in a prominent position at the start of a text (!), 4. to describe image elements, and 5. as a link.
Less text, more structure
These recommendations help you make the most of the limited space available:
- Short sentences and paragraphs: Long and complex sentence structures impair readability. Use concise sentences and divide the text into clear paragraphs with appropriate (sub)headings.
- Bullet points: Structure information using bullet points to ensure a clear layout that allows readers to grasp the content quickly.
- White space: Ensure there is sufficient space between blocks of text. This improves readability and prevents visual overload. The ‘Page content’ section under the ‘Appearance’ tab offers the relevant design options for this.
Fewer pages, clearer overview
The existing website comprises around 12,000 pages and subpages, which does not correspond to the intended structure.
Our aim: The new website should contain a reduced number of pages and subpages to ensure better navigation for visitors. Here are some specific considerations and guidelines:
- Check whether the content of a page is still up to date and necessary. When making this decision, take the needs of your target groups into account.
- Is there any overlap in content between different subpages?
- If there is no overlap: Can a content element be created that clearly and concisely distinguishes between the topics?
- Also ask yourself whether the information is necessary at this specific location. Are you responsible for the content, or can you refer to another Department?
- Avoid unnecessary repetition of general information in the body text, such as addresses or Opening hours.