20 Favorite Higher Ed Websites Selected by Peers

In March 2018, I asked the 12 higher ed web professionals who presented at the 2018 Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference (HEW18) to share their top 3 favorite higher ed websites.

The resulting list featured 30 higher ed websites selected via this process.

Everybody was allowed to include their own website in their short list. I have shared these individual top 3 lists as part of the interviews from the HEW18 speakers we’ve been publishing for a few weeks. But, after removing the self selections from the list to include only peer-selected websites, I ended up with this final list of 20 sites.

Out of those 20 higher ed websites, 3 were independently listed by more than one person. The top site of this selection was chosen by 5 of the 12 members of this panel composed of web professionals all working in higher education.

You’ll find below the list of these 20 peer-selected favorite higher ed websites (the 3 most popular at the top and the 17 others listed in alphabetical order) along with the rationale from the higher ed web pros that selected them in the first place.

Johns Hopkins University (selected by 5 peers)

Rebecca Larson, Director of Web Communications – Wheaton College
Johns Hopkins University was one of the site we looked at during our redesign project. I like the simplicity of the site, as well as the parallax scroll effect (something I don’t think is done well on a lot of websites), and the unique persistent navigation on the right. The site has a fresh, dynamic feeling which mixes photography, infographics and video without getting too busy or distracting.

Nicole Montgomery, Director of Digital Communications – York College of Pennsylvania
The video content on their homepage grabs your attention and keeps you watching. The balance of academics, student life and athletics provides you with a good perspective of what it’s like on their campus.

Cody Benson, Sr. Director of Digital Strategy – Georgia State University
Still one of my favorites. They are clear about their research brand. The art and copy are always consistent and the navigation is clearly made to get the paths that generate the most revenue up front for people to clearly see.

Emily Mayock, AVP at Case Western Reserve University
I’ve always really liked the Johns Hopkins website. They were one of the first universities I can recall doing the large, dramatic videos on the homepage, and a lot of the interactions on that website are really great. I also love their degree sorter—not an easy task to accomplish with so many degree options.

Dan Herrero, Web Development Specialist – Lehigh University
Another one of my top favorites is Johns Hopkins University. Again, I really like the experience of scrolling through their homepage and its overlapping sections. I can really appreciate how well that translates when viewing the page on a mobile device, which is often a delicate balancing act. I also think the subtle hover and scroll interactions they’ve implemented on their homepage and throughout their site are great and are the kinds of things I love to look for when I’m visiting other higher ed websites. I also really like how easy their interactive program finder is to use.

University of Maryland (selected by 2 peers)

Jessie Groll, Web Developer – Indiana University of Pennsylvania
I love the huge, full-bleed photographs that are used for the different sections on the University of Maryland homepage. And the flyouts that include news and events, event athletic results, depending on the section is fun and attention-getting.

Nicole Montgomery, Director of Digital Communications – York College of Pennsylvania
The sleek design is very interactive and super easy to navigate. It is a different approach that stands out among peer institutions. On the Undergraduate Admissions page, as you scroll, you progress through the funnel from requesting information, applying and finally visiting the website.

Princeton University (selected by 2 peers)

Dan Herrero, Web Development Specialist – Lehigh University
Princeton University is another favorite of mine. I find their website to be very elegant and easy to navigate. I’ve also found there is a noticeable consistency between how their pages are structured, which helps make a pleasant visiting experience. Their website is also extremely simple to navigate and use on a mobile device, which is easy to take for granted, but still so important to get right.

Emily Mayock, AVP at Case Western Reserve University
I’m also a huge fan of the redesigned Princeton University Undergraduate Admissions website: It’s clean yet still packs a ton of information onto the page, and also gives you a distinct sense of who, what and where they are.

Websites selected by 1 peer

The rest of this list is presented in alphabetical order. Each website was selected by one of the 2018 Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference speakers.

Cornell University

Dave Poortvliet, Web Manager – Grand Valley State University
I borrowed many ideas from Cornell University site when we were looking to redesign our university site in 2016. At the time I thought the Cornell site did a superb job of packing in a lot of content and information into a clean homepage. The design still stands the test of time today.

Deakin University

Cade Whitbourn, Web Manager – Charles Sturt University
I like Deakin University’s consistency of user interface through the top level of the site, the emphasis on search, the expansive main menu on the left, and the overall tidy design and consistent brand experience.

Hamilton College

Cody Benson, Sr. Director of Digital Strategy – Georgia State University
Hamilton College makes great use of basic information to connect with their brand. It’s hard to make it clear who you are and what you want someone to think about you. The effort put in here is awesome.

Indiana University’s Web Style Guide

Shannon, Web Developer – St. Mary’s University
Indiana University’s Web Style Guide, I love how IU has gathered all of their style guides into one living, breathing document. Rather than searching for a PDF or referring to several different documents, vendors and internal stakeholders can visit this website and have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips. Whether you need basic visual style guidelines, branding information, or even specific code blocks, you can grab it all instantly from this simple, clean website.

Loyola University Maryland

Dan Herrero, Web Development Specialist – Lehigh University
One higher ed website I was looking at recently that quickly became a top favorite is Loyola University Maryland‘s. I love the experience of scrolling through their homepage. I think having the “trending” links section there is a really interesting device to serve up popular links that are likely relevant to their visitors. I also really like the “Meet Our Community” sidebars that they have throughout their subpages. That’s really great content and I like the way they’ve implemented it. I think their navigation and breadcrumbing is really nicely designed and executed, as well.

Mississippi College

Kris Hardy, Director of Web and Digital Marketing – Messiah College
The Mississippi College website is beautiful! They have done a fantastic job incorporating really interesting photography within a functional and intuitive layout. To top it off, they use some very subtle CSS transitions that give it a really polished look and feel.

Northwestern University

Rebecca Larson, Director of Web Communications – Wheaton College
Northwestern University’s site was another we looked to during our redesign as an example of a look and feel we liked. I appreciate its clean layout, which allows for a good amount of white space (you’ll see echos of that in our site, too). Its navigation is clear and easy to understand. And, at least at the landing page level, the design maintains a pleasing consistency.

Oberlin College and Conservatory

Jessie Groll, Web Developer – Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Oberlin College and Conservatory site is clean, bright, and open. They make great use of visuals and color balanced by negative space. The imagery and messaging is very focused on the student perspective, and the Oberlin Blogs give, as their site says, an “unfiltered” view of their campus and culture.

Open Universities Australia’s Course “Wizard”

Cade Whitbourn, Web Manager – Charles Sturt University
I like the way Open Universities Australia’s Course “Wizard” leads users through a series of questions to choose the best course for them. I’m not sure that the process adds a lot of value to the end selection of courses, but it gives the user the impression of a highly tailored experience.

SNHU

Kris Hardy, Director of Web and Digital Marketing – Messiah College
I am a long-time believer that our academic programs are our products. Southern New Hampshire University really takes this idea home by organizing their site information architecture around their academic programs making it really easy for users to find the program they are looking for.

St. Francis Xavier University

Robert Blizzard, Web Design Coordinator – University of Saskatchewan
St. Francis Xavier University is an undergraduate university with a clear focus on the student experience.

The Juilliard School

Emily Mayock, AVP at Case Western Reserve University
I’m in love with The Juilliard School website: the opening videos, the dramatic imagery and the day-in-the-life articles. I normally despise websites that have audio, but for them it works so effortlessly. This is truly a website that really couldn’t be anyone else’s—you know immediately where you are, and what makes a Juilliard education stand out.

University of British Columbia

Robert Blizzard, Web Design Coordinator – University of Saskatchewan
The team of the a href=”https://www.ubc.ca/”>University of British Columbia has done a great job of developing common templates that can be consistently applied across the site. The top level sites show clear evidence of significant user testing as we often find results in the field that validate decisions made on UBC site.

University of Chicago

Nicole Montgomery, Director of Digital Communications – York College of Pennsylvania
Instead of placing paragraphs upon paragraphs of text on the website, the University of Chicago keeps the text to a minimum and lets the imagery do the “talking”.

University of Iowa

Dave Poortvliet, Web Manager – Grand Valley State University
My friend works on the admissions team at the University of Iowa and does a lot of work with their website. I admire their ability to customize messaging and personalize the experience for recruitment. I’m always checking their site for recruitment ideas.

University of Nevada, Reno

Kris Hardy, Director of Web and Digital Marketing – Messiah College
The University of Nevada, Reno has done a great job with their top-level global navigation pages (i.e., about, admissions, academics, etc). These pages use standardized elements to keep the look of the pages consistent while also maintaining a great balance between images and text. The pages do a great job telling the UNR story through short text, infographics, videos and full-bleed images.

University of Notre Dame

Shannon, Web Developer – St. Mary’s University
I like how the University of Notre Dame’s content reflows effortlessly to fit any screen size, so on huge developer’s monitors it doesn’t feel like I’m reading one narrow little column down the middle. They’ve also chosen to feature a number of beautiful photos of their buildings front and center, so you get a feel for what it might be like to walk through campus.

A conference focusing on higher ed WEBSITES?

The Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference is a must for higher ed web professionals and teams looking for inspiration, ideas and best practices.

Read below what a few of your higher ed colleagues who attended the Higher Ed WEBSITES Conference said about the experience.