As part of my role at Lewes District Council, I’m working on a development of the Council’s website lewes.gov.uk. The development began in February 2009 and is ongoing.
My role for this project is to manage and improve website content. I’m working with my colleagues in IT to overhaul and develop the website as a whole. This is a running commentary of our progress.
February 2009
Some work had already taken place when I took on the project. As I worked through things, it became clear this wasn’t necessarily going in the right direction.
Management of content was missing and causing big problems. The system was being looked after perfectly well but there was no similar overview on the information being displayed.
Internal departments were creating and publishing pages in their own inconsistent and individual way. This cumulative effect made things impossible to find. A new overarching content management system was needed.
So I began by meeting all 10 or so internal departments to discuss their needs for the website. With such varying ideas it was impossible to simply implement each as suggested, but I worked on overcoming the problem.
April 2009
Using everyone’s feedback I began to develop a new information architecture for the whole website. This was drawn up based on a simple content flow. It’s fair to say it wasn’t easy. Several hundred pages need be reached quickly and simply.
The new categorization could only be based around current content – not future pages that had yet to be written. However, it needed to be fluid enough to accommodate any changes as and when new information was ready.
Meanwhile, my colleagues in IT worked on implementing a new design, incorporating this new structure.
July 2009
Following the information architecture changes, I developed a new in-house web style. This would be used across every page to keep a consistency to the text, images, links and other elements.
I started rewriting all the pages to conform to this style in June. Some of the text was input into one section along with the new template design and IA to use as our beta test area.
A range of working groups tested our methods and we amend as needed following their feedback.
October 2009
The remainder of content pages, around 750, were rewritten to conform to the new style and template design – a task I did personally.
I employed other changes too, moving much of the information from PDF documents to highlighting directly in web pages. New images were taken and added where appropriate. Every page was also re-keyworded to improve SEO.
Doing all of this helped de-clutter the website. Over 500 pages were deleted with the information either old and out of date, or amalgamated into other areas.
The new website was prepared on a shadow server. Once it was ready to launch each department had a period to check and amend to ensure everything was ok before launch.
November 2009
The new design was launched on 2 November 2009.
Along with the launch came a new management structure. Previously, content management was a shared responsibility. Now, overarching control rested with me in the Communications Office.
I now control the homepage, section portal pages and other element to keep it up to date and relevant.
February 2010
The next step to transforming the website was to ensure content was provided and updated as required. This meant making sure key staff across the council took responsibility for ‘their’ information.
The ‘old’ website didn’t have a clear guide to updates. This was the cause of many problems – not least the website giving out inaccurate information. This was clearly not acceptable and something that can’t continue.
I drew up a new workflow which recognised web managers in each department who could be called upon when needed. In addition, administrators we ear-marked too to be able to input changes into the CMS.
I held a series of training sessions with my colleagues in IT to train staff to allow the to carry out the work. This meant updates would not bottleneck with one department.
The work continues…