10 thematic portals –
One website
The website of the City of Osnabrück is a central point of contact for citizens, visitors, businesses, and other stakeholders. It offers access to services, events, news, contact information of authorities, and other relevant information. An aesthetically pleasing website plays an important role in shaping the brand of the city, providing access to important information, informing and engaging citizens as well as improving the city’s attractiveness for visitors, businesses, and investors.
Yellow Tree was tasked with the conception and implementation of the website. The project required careful planning, collaboration with local partners, and technical expertise to create an appealing and functional website for the City of Osnabrück.
Implementation
The website of the City of Osnabrück is divided into ten thematic portals to provide information more quickly and in a bundled manner. These portals can be centrally maintained via the TYPO3 backend. Thanks to different backend user roles, each thematic area can be managed individually, while specific content types — such as contact persons or news — can still be centrally administered and published. Events and dining establishments are imported via an interface from Destination.One, which was already being used to manage various channels. For the frontend, Webpack generates different color variants for all portals and various appearances from a codebase.
Intelligent Solr search
The implementation of the Solr search on the City of Osnabrück’s website not only marks a step towards innovation but also represents a turning point in user experience. It leads to faster results as well as more accurate and relevant search hits. The search function covers all of the city’s portals, as well as independent sites and services of the ServicePortal. Accessible from every page, users can quickly find the information they need without any detours.
Integration of NINA warnings
With NINA (a Germany-wide app for emergencies and news), the website not only displays warning messages — it serves as a direct connection to updates and critical information provided by the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance in real-time. Whether it’s severe weather alerts, traffic reports, or other critical information: NINA sends the most urgent messages straight to the devices of Osnabrück’s citizens. Additionally, important information can be sent as push notifications via the website’s backend.
Accessibility
according to WCAG
During the development of the website, great emphasis was laid on accessibility in accordance with the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) to ensure that people with different abilities and impairments can access information. This meant that the design, content, and code of the website had to be designed and developed accordingly. For example, users can have the site content read aloud, and color contrasts and font sizes can be individually adjusted consistently across all viewports.
Integration of DeepL and multilingualism
Osnabrück is an attractive city for international visitors and tourists as well. A DeepL integration enables the translation of website content into various languages, allowing users to read the site in their preferred language. This significantly increases the amount of people reached and improves accessibility for a broader audience.
