Just one University achieves a 1st class in the Q2 2018 UK Universities and Higher Education INDEX

24 Jul 2018 | Accessibility | Public sector

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Every quarter the Sitemorse INDEX assess websites by sector, giving them a score and rank based on User Experience, Search Optimisation and Governance Risk and Compliance. This covers technical factors such as function, accessibility, code quality and loading speed.

Last quarter in the UK Universities and Higher Education INDEX we tested over 890,000 URLs and ran more than 291,000,000 tests.

The average score for this INDEX was 3.96, with the top scoring site (LSBU) achieving 7.04 and the worst performing site achieving just 1.90. Overall, the average was down by 0.01 from 3.97 compared to Q1 of 2018 with the top score then being 7.42 and lowest 2.10.

The results revealed London South Bank University (LSBU) to be ranked Top Site for the third quarter in succession. LSBU have been in 1st place for eight out of the last nine quarters with their worst performance in these last nine quarters being 2nd. However, their score last quarter did decrease from 7.42 in Q1 of 2018 to 7.04 showing there is still room for improvement for the leading University.

Congratulations to LSBU it’s great to see them getting the technical details right. In the current climate, it’s important for universities and higher educational institutions to make sure that they are delivering when it comes to accessibility, functionality and performance which all impact user experience.

Our top riser for Q2 was University of Lincoln who launched a new website earlier this year working with long term partner Terminal 4. They jumped up the table by 292 places to get themselves into the top 20, a position they haven’t secured since Q1 of 2014. Their score increased by an impressive 2.56 to 5.54, improving in every area other than Performance where they were already scoring full marks.

These are impressive results, they show something for the sector to be proud of and a general increase in the awareness and standard of websites across the industry.

The results of this quarter (Q3) will soon be available, with results being distributed in mid-August. The first deadline of the EU public sector accessibility directive (European standard EN 301 549 V1.1.2 (2015-04)) comes into force in September and we hope to see more sites making improvements on their journey to compliance ahead of the deadline.

View the full results for the Q2 2018 UK Universities and Higher Education INDEX and see how to access more detailed results below in our short presentation

Want to know more about the INDEX? Visit https://sitemorse.com/benchmark to see how the scores are calculated.