A site redesign for Regional Development Australia – Northern Rivers (RDA-NR) – a partnership between the Australian, State, Territory and local governments to develop and strengthen the regional communities of Australia, and covers the local government areas of Tweed, Byron, Ballina, Lismore, Kyogle, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley in northern New South Wales.
RDA-NR have had a website since around 2008 and it had come to the point where, as is the case for all websites, it needed a refresh! And of course, this presented many opportunities to redesign, revise, and revamp a lot more than just how it looked. I was very excited to be invited to quote – it was a competitive process and I was bidding against other local web design and development businesses. It was definitely a “let’s dance around the house” when I got the call to say I’d been successful!! It is certainly the biggest project I’ve undertaken this year, and one that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing. Realistic clients, a good plan, and a big website to work on … I’m a happy camper!!
The public RDA-NR website is quite large and needed some reorganisation. User-friendly and search-friendly URLs, simplified pages, clear navigation and basics like using a larger font were important elements. It’s always a challenge for me to understand client businesses while I’m working on their websites, and this one was no exception. A diverse audience and the need to ensure accessibiity, usability, and meeting brand and style guidelines were all part of the mix.
There are a significant number of different types of content including pages (around 100), downloadable documents (300+), posts (only the 50+ stories for 2013 have been migrated), a calendar of events, image gallery (not quite there yet!), RSS feeds, featured stories, a member-only site, eNews integration and new templates, plus a host of other elements to be implemented. eNewsletter signup has been migrated to Mailchimp – a challenging process in itself, with more than 3000 subscribers to be moved and placed back into their correct ‘groups’.
One of the requirements for this project was to use an open source content management system, and I’ve used WordPress, with a fully customised premium theme. We’ve had some good feedback on the site since it’s been released – it’s easy to navigate and responsive but even though the new site release went smoothly, it hasn’t been without some issues, 99% of which have now been resolved.
Work included everything from design and customisation, selection and installation of plugins, member-site setup, content migration, setting up the document library, Mailchimp setup and integration through to testing, quality assurance and successful site release, and ongoing monitoring. Training and documentation are a work in progress!
There are a considerable number of plugins used to enable required functionality, and without detailing them all, a few that have been used include:
Filebase Pro for the document library; Digital Access Pass for the member-only site, and the Timely All in One Event Calendar. Velvet Blues saved me from having to track down and change close on 800 links when everything changed from the development address to live. And of course, there’s also SEO, security , and a few others including Meteor Slides (one of the easiest ways to get an image gallery up and running!)! All of these were chosen for ease of use, functionality, and reliability. And of course, the challenge, as always, with the multitude of plugins you can install, is to keep them up to date, and to remove any that you don’t need! One of the lst ones to be be installed will accommodate a custom admin dashboard for each of the site administrators.
Released: 27 August 2013
Visit the site: rdanorthernrivers.org.au
This is the new site. If you scroll down further you’ll see what the original site looked like.
And, this is the old site…
