We are very happy with—and proud of—our new website. We especially love the use of video, as it engages young audiences.

Merethe Lyck Nielsen, Communications Officer, EUC Syd

Focus on usability, design and security

EUC Syd offers a colourful palette of upper secondary and vocational education to a predominantly young target group. With a new Umbraco website, they have a vibrant and modern look that matches their target group. And above all, they have a clear and user-friendly structure that embraces the broad educational offerings and enables young people to make an informed choice based on their personal interests and competences. But it all started with security.

"We had a website that was quite a few years old," says Merethe Lyck Nielsen, Communications Officer at EUC Syd. "The main hurdle was that the website could no longer be security updated and that we were therefore not adequately covered in terms of security. In addition, we had slightly changed the composition of our programmes. This means that today we primarily target a very young audience. So when our security requirements meant we needed a new website, we also wanted a more modern design with more videos and more life."

Complex organisation - simple navigation

A large part of the preparatory work for EUC Syd's new website has been about creating a simple structure and navigation to give visitors the best possible experience. Even though EUC Syd is a complex organisation with an extensive amount of information. In the field of vocational education alone, they offer around 30 different programmes. In addition, there are a number of upper secondary education programmes.

"We wanted to challenge young people a little in relation to the fact that many choose an upper secondary education because they perceive it as broad and are afraid of making a narrow choice to become a skilled worker," says Merethe Lyck Nielsen. "We wanted to show them the many different educational options available to them and make it easier for them to choose based on what they are good at and interested in."

Study Compass shows young people the way

"Illumi came up with the idea of creating a study compass that guides young people to a more informed and personalised study choice," she continues. "The study compass asks about their interests and dreams and what they are good at - and then it suggests different study programmes based on that. This way, young people realise that there can be many different study programmes that suit them - instead of being locked into one direction from the start. The idea of the study compass appealed to us a lot and has proven to work really well."

Development that never stops

At the time of writing, EUC Syd has had the new website for just over six months and has long since finalised the most important content. But the work on the website is an ongoing process, Merethe Lyck Nielsen openly admits.

"A website is never completely finished, and we are very conscious of that. One of the reasons we chose Illumi as our partner is that they focus on continuous development. We wanted to avoid getting stuck once the initial development was complete, so we expect an ongoing collaboration where we - together with Illumi - continuously develop what we have created."

Simple editor interface and benefits of standard CMS

One thing EUC Syd emphasises about their new website is that the backend in Umbraco CMS is easy to work in. It wasn't an ultimate requirement that EUC Syd's new website should be built in Umbraco, but as they previously used the same platform and were happy with it, it was an obvious choice. However, it wasn't just the simple editorial work that was important to them, explains Merethe Lyck Nielsen:

"We've tried both standard and customised websites, and one of the reasons we like Umbraco is that it's a standard system. It gives us freedom in terms of who we choose to work with - and to develop the website in line with the rest of the organisation's development."

A great collaboration where agreements are honoured

"I've done websites several times, and it's always a big project. But I think it has gone really well with Illumi. Schedules and agreements have been honoured, and the good impression we got of them at their first presentation has been maintained throughout the entire collaboration. It's nice that the confidence we had in Illumi right from the start has matched the experience we've had with them subsequently," concludes Merethe Lyck Nielsen.

The colours and design are simple and clean, and there is good structure. Illumi has done a great job of getting an overview of our old content and reorganising it.

Merethe Lyck Nielsen, Communications Officer, EUC Syd