CERN has launched its new home.cern website, giving online users the chance to find out about the Organization in a new way. As well as a change of design, site navigation is now content-based instead of audience-based.
Taking feedback from a 2017 workshop of CERN stakeholders as well as an online survey of more than 2000 website users, CERN’s scrolling homepage now includes more information. A new megamenu takes visitors deeper into the website quicker than before, not only for news but also for background information about the Laboratory itself, including new lists of frequently asked questions and a new science section with reference material about CERN’s research.
CERN’s previous website, launched in 2012, asked users to identify themselves as either the public, CERN community, scientists or students and educators. The dilemma was that many visitors identified as more than one of these audiences.
Now visitors can choose different ways to navigate the site, with content grouped into seven topics: physics, accelerators, engineering, computing, experiments, knowledge sharing and at CERN. More audiences have been added to the existing audiences: industry, policymakers and the media, with news items now tagged for multiple audiences to help users find relevant content faster, including news, announcements, opinion pieces and more.
Press releases are incorporated into the new website, with press.cern now pointing to dedicated press room for media. Upcoming events and webcasts are now more prominently featured and a new resources section showcases images, videos and publications such as the annual report, CERN Courier magazine and the Bulletin for the CERN community.
The main CERN website has undergone several changes in its past. By 1998, there was a public website under www.cern.ch. By 2005, this changed to public.web.cern.ch before the 2012 evolution to home.web.cern.ch, whose url changed to home.cern in 2015. In this latest evolution, the toolbar at the top of the website has remained, allowing the CERN community easy access to the directory page for useful links. Content will continue to evolve over time; for now, we wish you an enjoyable new online experience.