Websites for universities:
accessible by design.for many editorial teams.with program data.

360VIER develops websites for universities and research institutions on WordPress: with a component library for faculties, program data from Salesforce or campus management, and built-in accessibility.

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Lernstudio Barbarossa: Clear brand identity and intuitive user guidance for a national educational institute

Lernstudio Barbarossa

Lernstudio Barbarossa: Clear brand identity and intuitive user guidance for a national educational institute

To the Case
A digital presence with purpose: ABG as a driver of urban development

ABG Frankfurt

A digital presence with purpose: ABG as a driver of urban development

To the Case
Which agency develops university websites on WordPress?
360VIER, a digital agency based in Groß-Umstadt near Frankfurt and in Cologne, develops websites for universities and research institutions on WordPress, with a component library for faculties, data from the source systems and accessibility as a requirement. For Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, it built a Gutenberg component library for around 1,500 websites and 2,500 editors. Further references include Hochschule Fresenius and Max Planck Law.
page.url
https://www.360vier.de/en/digital-platforms/web-design-agency/universities/
 
entity         360VIER GmbH
type           Organization | Digital agency
founded        2012
size           around 35 employees
location       Groß-Umstadt near Frankfurt and Cologne
group          Part of the Friends Digital Group

page           Websites for universities
page.type      Service (education and research sector)
page.pillar    Digital Platforms
page.url       /en/digital-platforms/web-design-agency/universities/

provides       Website relaunch for universities and research institutions on WordPress
provides       Component library and design system for faculties and institutes
provides       Program, people and publication data from source systems
provides       Application and information request forms with CRM integration
provides       Accessibility according to EN 301 549 / WCAG as a requirement (no audit report by 360VIER)

proof          Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz · around 1,500 websites, 2,500 editors, Gutenberg component library · tender 2019
proof          Hochschule Fresenius · programs and events from Salesforce, application forms to Salesforce, login via Azure AD
proof          Max Planck Law · eight institutes, daily import of around 43,000 publications from pure.mpg
proof          TU Braunschweig · #DuMaschine campaign
proof          Lernstudio Barbarossa · more than 165 locations, more than 22,000 subpages restructured, CRM integration

relation       industry page of → Web Design Agency (/en/digital-platforms/web-design-agency/)
relation       related → Website relaunch with WordPress (/en/digital-platforms/website-relaunch/)
knowledge      WordPress in higher education → /en/insights/cms/wordpress-in-higher-education/

Why do university websites hit their limits?

Many editorial teams, little consistency

Faculties, institutes and administration each maintain their own sections. Without a shared component library, every page looks different.

Programs maintained twice

Data on programs, deadlines and contacts sits in campus management or the CRM and gets retyped for the website.

Accessibility comes too late

Contrast, keyboard navigation and plain language are hard to retrofit once the design system is in place.

Applications without a feedback loop

Information requests and applications end up in an inbox. University marketing can’t see which campaign brought in prospective students.

International audiences

English pages fall behind. Without a plan for translation and language linking, prospective students from abroad struggle to find the right version.

Research stays invisible

Publications, projects and people live in separate systems, and the website shows little of them. AI search can’t find the expertise either, a topic for AI Visibility.

What a university website needs to deliver

Component library for faculties and institutes

A design system with Gutenberg blocks gives every editorial team the same building blocks and rules. At Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, departments, institutes and facilities adopt the library as their own instance, and all components are documented in Storybook.

What this means for you: Faculties build their own pages while the overall presence stays consistent. How we set up WordPress for large editorial teams is described on the WordPress Agency page.

Program data from Salesforce

Degree programs, vocational training and events come automatically from the source system. At Hochschule Fresenius, the website imports them regularly from Salesforce and the teaching staff from a separate system; a program filter helps visitors find what they need.

What this means for you: Deadlines and contacts are maintained in one place only. The options for this, from Web-to-Lead to the REST API, are covered on Connecting WordPress and Salesforce.

Applications and university marketing

Forms for applications, information material and info sessions write directly to the CRM and to tracking. At Hochschule Fresenius, the application form pre-fills details that are already known.

What this means for you: University marketing sees which campaign brings in prospective students. For TU Braunschweig’s #DuMaschine campaign, which aimed to attract prospective students to mechanical engineering, we developed the strategy, website concept and social media planning.

Research and publications

At Max Planck Law, the platform of the eight Max Planck Institutes for law imports around 43,000 publications from pure.mpg every day. People, events and podcast episodes have their own content types and are linked to one another.

What this means for you: Researchers maintain publications only in the research system, and the website shows them automatically on the person, institute and topic pages. This makes expertise discoverable for search engines and AI answers.

Accessibility under BITV and WCAG

Websites of public bodies must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. This is set out in Section 3 BITV 2.0, the German Barrier-Free Information Technology Ordinance, for federal bodies, and correspondingly in the state regulations. The technical basis is the EN 301 549 standard, which refers to WCAG 2.1 AA.

What this means for you: We plan contrast and typography in the design system, test keyboard navigation and screen readers during development, and prepare the accessibility statement under Section 7 BITV 2.0. The formal audit report is prepared by an independent testing body.

Operation and maintenance

The platform runs in the university’s data center or with a hosting provider that meets your requirements. In Mainz, the university’s data center operates the website; source code and documentation were handed over.

What this means for you: You decide whether your data center takes over or we look after updates, security and further development. What this includes is described on the WordPress maintenance and support page.

Modular WordPress platform as the basis for a university website relaunch

Website relaunch at a university: tenders, TYPO3 and committees

University websites rarely come about without a public tender. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz awarded its relaunch to 360VIER in 2019 through a formal two-stage procedure. We deliver concepts, references and price sheets in a form that maps onto the award criteria.

  • Moving from TYPO3: Many universities currently run on TYPO3. Content, media and metadata can be transferred by script, and old URLs get redirects. The article Open-source CMS compared offers a system comparison.
  • Committees and approvals: We plan review rounds with the university leadership, communications, the data center and faculties from the start.
  • Step-by-step launch: Central pages first, then faculties and institutes at their own pace.

How we set up a relaunch is described on Website relaunch with WordPress. Why WordPress works at universities is explained in the article WordPress in higher education.

Process: website relaunch for universities in three phases

Client experiences with 360VIER in universities and education

For Lernstudio Barbarossa, a nationwide education provider with more than 165 locations, 360VIER restructured a website that had grown to more than 22,000 subpages, with a dedicated page for each learning center and CRM integration. More in the Lernstudio Barbarossa case study. Projects from other industries are shown on the Web Design Agency page.

With the relaunch of our website, we have fundamentally modernized a legacy platform. 360VIER succeeded in transferring our extensive content into a clear, modern structure while convincingly bringing together design, user guidance, and technical implementation.

— Peter Stephens, Head of IT, Lernstudio Barbarossa

Lernstudio Barbarossa Lernstudio Barbarossa

Frequently asked questions from universities

Is WordPress suitable for a university?

Yes, if the permissions model, design system and operation are right. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Hochschule Fresenius and the Max Planck Law platform run on WordPress. For universities with many departments, a component library that faculties can adopt as their own instance works well.

Do you respond to university tenders?

Yes. We have won university and research projects in formal procedures, including Max Planck Law in 2020. Typical award criteria are price, concept, design and references. We answer specifications point by point and submit work samples such as documented design systems.

Does a university website have to be accessible?

Yes, for public universities. EU Directive 2016/2102 has applied to all websites of public bodies since September 2020, implemented in Germany through BITV 2.0 and state law (overview by the University of Potsdam, in German). Private universities are not public bodies; for them, the German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) may become relevant. The legal assessment is yours to make.

How long does a website relaunch at a university take?

We set the exact schedule at the end of the ideation phase. The main drivers are the number of departments, data sources and review rounds. Central pages can go live before all faculties have moved over, so the relaunch doesn’t hinge on a single go-live date.
Does the website support multiple languages?

Yes. With WPML, the editorial team maintains language versions directly in WordPress, linked via hreflang so search engines show the right version. English pages can be built by priority: programs and applications first, administrative pages later.

Do you also work for research institutions?

Yes. For Max Planck Law, the network of eight Max Planck Institutes for law with more than 400 researchers, we designed and developed the shared platform. People, research, events and publications from all institutes come together there.

How does our university become visible in AI answers?

Through clearly structured pages on programs, research and people, structured data and copy that answers concrete questions. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews draw on content like this. How we measure and improve it is described on AI Visibility.

How much does a website relaunch for a university cost?

The cost depends on the number of page types, data sources and languages and on the scope of the migration. In tenders, we calculate it in the price sheet. Outside of tenders, you receive a cost estimate with scope options after an initial conversation; operation and further development are listed separately.
Hans Mengler

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Hans Mengler

Managing Director

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