This article gives you an overview of the innovations and explains the most important functions

In the focus of the intranet relaunch - the target groups

About one year after intensive planning, many meetings with university members and an implementation that was as extensive as it was fast, the time has finally come: The UW/H has gone online with its new intranet!

The project "Intranet-Relaunch" pursued the goal to completely renew the intranet appearance of the UW/H - to bring it technically to a modern state, to provide it with a new design and a better information architecture and, above all, to make it target group oriented.

The project team thoroughly revised the existing UW/H website and adapted it to current needs and user habits. A clear navigation, many entry points for quick orientation and finding information as well as a uniform world of images characterize the appearance of the site. The result is a flexible, low-barrier, bilingual website that works responsively on all devices.

Heartfelt thanks

Thanks to the many employees and students from the faculties and the administration, who thought about new structures, revised content and wrote texts. In sometimes long processes they helped to design new informative web pages.

Thanks to the editors, who all did a very good job. Reliably and in many overtime hours they implemented the new pages.

Thanks to the student assistants who showed full commitment in all phases of the project, sometimes under difficult conditions and with tight deadlines.

Thanks to the two agencies who created the technical requirements, developed the modern design and acted as advisors.

Thanks to the university management and the Head of Communications & Marketing, who always supported the relaunch process and helped with their decisions to successfully implement the goals of the project.

Feedback welcome

Even before we take you on a little tour of the new intranet site below, we have a request: Your feedback is wanted, desired and necessary!

Especially in the weeks and months following the introduction of the new intranet pages, there will be continuous readjustment and, if necessary, further development of the pages. For the project team and the editors in the faculties and the administration, the work continues, the project becomes daily business. Write to us at websupport(at)uni-wh.de, we are looking forward to any feedback!

The new intranet site

Main navigation

The main navigation on the homepage of the new intranet is waiting to be clicked with a completely new menu.

In the header of each page you will find the A-Z directory with many important keywords, the full text search, the language selection (German - English) as well as the login button.

The layout and structure of the intranet pages have changed fundamentally. They are no longer organized by topic, but focus on the target groups, specifically you as the user. The information on the intranet is geared towards the most important groups - students and employees from the teaching, research and administrative areas.

The intranet is intended to serve as a central source of information, to make it easier to find your way around and to find the information you are looking for via short navigation paths.

Take a look around in the three topic areas "Studying", "Teaching & Researching" and "Working", which are directly tailored to the respective groups. The fourth topic area "UW/H Services" contains cross-target information for all UW/H members. When you click on one of the four main areas, you will be presented with a drop-down menu that displays all of the main topics in that area at a glance. Click on a topic and you will see additional subpages, if any. We have also included many cross-links so that you can quickly reach your destination.

Homepage

In addition to the new navigation subdivision according to target groups, the start page offers news, current events, teaser and DeepL access boxes.

The teaser boxes provide you with current UW/H-specific topics and the DeepL access boxes lead you with direct links to frequently needed tools or topic areas. Have a look and feel free to write us if you are missing something.

Content

The content focuses on target group-oriented communication for students and for staff from both academic and administrative areas. You can be happy about the fact that the new intranet is "open" to a large extent. You do not have to log in first to access your information. Sensitive information and files are, of course, still located on password-protected pages. If you click on a page that requires a login, you will be taken directly to the login page, where you can easily log in with your credentials.

If you enter a search term in the "Search" field, all hits for this search term are displayed - all intranet pages and files are searched. There may still be small technical bugs here and there, so that, for example, a page title or a person contact cannot yet be found. We are working on this and will fix it as soon as possible. Or you can go to the A-Z menu and search for the desired information there.

The intranet pages and texts are (almost) all bilingual. At the moment, there are still a few places that are not yet available in English for technical reasons. This will be done in the near future.

The page design has been tested as far as possible to be barrier-free. All pages are automatically adapted for the available output device - desktop, tablet or smartphone - so that you can always access all information.

Design

On all pages, you will discover the search, A-Z menu, language selection and login button in the header area. The footer is also fixed - with the imprint, the feedback notice and a DeepL access to the most important social links as well as the internal and the external blog of the UW/H. The four main areas are designed with four fixed images, so that it is always visually recognizable in which area you are currently navigating.

Background on the initial situation and implementation of the intranet relaunch

Initial situation

The relaunch of the intranet site was necessary because the intranet had been technically outdated for many years and no longer met the requirements of the users. The navigation structure was outdated, the search function did not always serve its purpose, and pages were overloaded with content and sometimes filled with outdated content.

Implementation

During the project, UW/H members from all areas represented in the "old" intranet and from those that were newly added contributed their know-how in many appointments. The relaunch was implemented by a four-person project team, two agencies, student assistants and editors from the scientific and administrative areas. The project was under the direction of the Communication & Marketing department.

Together with the two agencies, the project team clarified the technical requirements and developed the new design, as well as conducting a usage and needs survey among the target groups. This was followed by meetings with representatives from all areas of the UW/H - with students, faculty and department representatives and colleagues from all administrative institutions. The meetings focused on analyzing the content of the navigation structure of individual areas, and suggestions for revisions were made. In addition, the relaunch team returned to these contacts again and again in order to find experts to work on very specific issues. The student assistants and the editors from the faculties and the administration have filled the new structures with old, revised and new content.

The "old" intranet

The "old" intranet is still available for a few months.

The Intranet Relaunch Project Team: Barbara Quinkert, Jana Wübbe, Felicitas Mai, Katrin Schubert