After a design and development project informed by user research, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new homepage which will go live on Tuesday 16 March 2021.

The launch marks a key milestone in work to create the platform we need to enable us to publish relevant digital content and communicate key messages more easily to the range of audiences who visit our website.

Modern design and better user experience

The new design of the page represents a significant step forward for the University website in terms of functionality and user experience, especially for visitors using mobile devices. It's structured in a way that will also facilitate voice search, making our information more widely accessible than the old external homepage. Around 17% of people enter our site through the homepage and it now provides visitors with an easier way to learn about the University and to browse information.

Following our digital principles, we will further iterate the page to enhance functionality and design based on user feedback after launch.

The new design:

• provides an improved user experience across all devices
• gives us more flexibility in the information we can show on the homepage
• will help improve search engine rankings for the University website; for example, Google favours responsive websites in their search rankings
• gives us more consistency across bath.ac.uk
  

We always value feedback on our website to help us make improvements so please let us know your thoughts using the external homepage feedback form.

Accessibility

The new homepage has also been designed and structured to comply with accessibility legislation, another improvement from the old design.

New features

Top of page

• A hero message area for important news and key strategic messages which can also be used for emergency communications
• Tabbed areas supporting key strategic themes, each section links to further in-depth information published elsewhere on the website

Flexible elements

• New, additional promotional areas, one giving us the ability to add up to three multimedia elements such as videos and image galleries

• News section which can be moved up or down the page to give it more prominence if required

Bottom of page

• Social media icons which link out to the University's main channels