As a potential student, navigating your university’s website should be seamless and easy. Unfortunately, many universities have fallen short when it comes to website navigation. This can significantly impact both current and prospective students ability to connect with the university to pursue enrolment, leading to frustration, confusion, and a lack of engagement with the university.
Why Poor Website Navigation Impacts University Enrollments
So why does poor website navigation impact your university? The answer is simple: it creates a barrier for discovery and information gathering. If students cannot easily find the information they need, they may become discouraged and disengaged with the university. It may create an impression that you are not easy to engage with, not easy to ‘do business with.’
This can ultimately lead to a decline in enrollment, lower student retention rates, and a negative impact on the overall reputation of the university. The exact opposite of your marketing goals of higher interest leading to higher enrollments.
Best Practices in Website Navigation
To avoid these negative consequences, it’s essential for universities to follow best practices in navigation. This includes:
- Having a clear and concise menu that is user-centric. Often navigation structures are set up to functionally match the university structure rather than what makes information finding easier for your interested stakeholders.
- Providing easy-to-find search functionality. That includes ensuring that the search function for your website is correctly setup to return the best possible results for those using it. This makes finding information easy and more direct.
- Utilizing breadcrumbs and other navigational aids to help guide users through the website. These navigation aids need to be clear and not too involved. Too many layers makes your site more complicated. The right number of layers makes it concise and easy to navigate.
How to Determine the Best Website Navigation
Determining the best site navigation for your university can be a daunting task, but undertaking a UX review of your site is the first step. Yasaman is here to help with that. With her UX review process, which includes stakeholder interviews and focus groups, she can help identify pain points and areas for improvement in your university’s website navigation.
This can ultimately lead to a more user-friendly and engaging experience for both current and prospective students. We have seen quite noticeable results when a UX review of an education institution’s site is undertaken. Through a review the structure of not only the main navigation, but also on page structure changed. This led to a more direct enrollment path for potential students, ultimately leading to an increase in enrollment interest.
The value of undertaking a UX review
Undertaking a UX review may seem like a daunting task, but the value it can bring to your educational institution is immeasurable. By improving website navigation, you can create a more positive and engaging experience for your students, and stakeholders, ultimately leading to a more successful institution.
Don’t let poor website navigation hold your university back – take action today and work with Yasaman to create a website that truly reflects your university’s values and priorities.
