UNESCO Germany relaunches website, improving accessibility and user experience
The premier organization for global heritage
Few international non-profits are as well-known and globally respected as UNESCO. The United Nations’ organization for education, science, culture and communications is a leading NGO whose mission is the preservation of cooperation and peace, the eradication of poverty, and intercultural dialogue through education and culture.
The German Commission for UNESCO (DUK) has been working to implement UNESCO projects in Germany since 1950, from its “kulturweit” youth volunteer service, to project schools and world heritage sites. Its goal is to continue to preserve and develop natural heritage, and make a fundamental contribution to shaping an inclusive society.
With an ever expanding digital presence, it was essential for DUK to maintain an engaging and high-performing website that meets the needs of the organization as it continues to fulfill its mission. For this task, the organization chose 3pc to relaunch their website, delivering a more accessible web experience to visitors, strengthening its online presence and sharpening its identity.
Enabling a collaborative framework for editors
As a large nonprofit organization with several editors maintaining their website, DUK required an easy-to-use backend solution that would enable a collaborative framework for editors, allowing them to handle unique workflows, manage data records, and easily create and manage new pages.
The project kicked off in October 2022, beginning with co-creative workshops to identify the most important target audiences and brainstorm ways to address them effectively with a holistic communications strategy.
Along with the communications strategy, the relaunch of the website featuring a collection of notable improvements was the project’s next step.
TYPO3 was chosen as the content management system, and the website was upgraded to v12 from an older version.
Delivering an improved web experience
Flexible Search Functionality and Extensions
The 3pc team used extensions from the TYPO3 community, including Solr, a search tool that enables real-time result generation, improving user experience both due to speed as well as dynamic filtering.
In addition to adding Solr for search, the team also integrated a self-programmed location extension. This extension makes it easier to maintain and manage more than 500 UNESCO locations on the website. Data records are prepared clearly and in a structured format, and the ability to use keywords ensures an accurate generation of location results, along with simplified editorial maintenance.
With accessibility being an important feature of this project, important steps were taken to ensure that the website was inclusive of all audience groups. Important accessibility measures included:
- Font enlargement
- A high-contrast dark mode
- Pages translated by 3pc in plain language
- Energy saving mode that reduces battery consumption
A high-performing website with TYPO3
By the late November of 2024 the relaunch was ready. Some of the more noteworthy changes to the website included a full-screen mega menu that offers clear navigation allowing users to quickly access content via quick links, and jump labels within individual pages that provide improved navigation.
Along with the aforementioned enhanced search functionality and location map, the 3pc team also improved website performance with the use of ‘webp’ and lazy loading for displaying high-quality images. This enables images to be displayed over a larger area of the web page without slowing down content delivery speeds and affecting performance.
Additionally, editorial teams and administrators benefit from a step-by-step approval process integrated into the backend that improves security and contributes to quality assurance for any content that’s published to the site.
The website’s relaunch was a major success, with the improved backend collaboration that the version upgrade brought enabling editors to work together more efficiently. Additionally, the website’s performance was notably improved, including data and asset management capabilities, allowing for improved content delivery speeds.
From a frontend perspective, the enhanced search functionality, powered by Solr, along with the faster load times for rich media assets such as images allowed for an improved user experience for visitors to the site.
TYPO3 supports organizations across all industries in their digital transformation. Work with TYPO3 on your next web project.
Gallery & Features
