we worked on The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website
We worked with lbdesign on www.hmd.org.uk. Our role involved XHTML/CSS development from designs created by lbdesign and a PHP/MySQL custom Content Management System.
When edgeofmyseat.com first began working with lbdesign and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Trust already had a website. Our initial involvement was to patch up some problems with this site, namely that it became unresponsive under high traffic and adding events to the site by users was very difficult and many users were unable to add their events.
It became apparent that the existing site wasn't meeting the needs of the HMDT and that to try and fix the problems would be time consuming. Along with lbdesign we created a specification for a new site that would meet the needs of the Trust.
The requirements
The HMD Trust site and resources are updated each year to reflect the new theme and visitors should be able to quickly find the resources for the coming 'day', however the trust still wanted to maintain the old content on the site as it is still useful and relevant.
In addition, the trust works with a range of different people - the press, teachers who are planning lessons and assemblies, local event co-ordinators and those who are just interesting in finding out more - perhaps because they have clicked through from a BBC news article about the Holcaust. They wanted to help visitors to find the most relevant information quickly.
Another important requirement is that the site would rebrand every year to the current theme for the upcoming Holocaust Memorial Day. We needed to be able to easily switch the look and feel to reflect that new design without requiring a rebuild of the site.
"Rachel Andrew and edgeofmyseat.com possess a unique blend of professionalism and technical expertise."
- Liam Dempsey, lbdesign
Our solutions
We created a custom content management system for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which enabled them to easily add and edit the content and resources of the site without needing to come back to us for changes on a regular basis.
In building the site we built in the ability to enter the current year and enter resources with a year tag. This means that resources for the current year are pushed forward and other relevant resources can be accessed but it is clear that these are from other years.
By enabling people to create an account and indicate the group that they fall into we can show them the latest content for their main interest while keeping all content available. Another feature of being a logged in member is the ability to create a favourites list - this is useful for teachers and event co-ordinators who are creating a list of resources in order to create an assembly or event.
The site was built using CSS and XHTML, separating the presentation of look and feel from the content and structure of the site mean tthat changing to the new theme for the 2008 day took relatively little work. We simply created the new CSS and then swapped stylesheets! It is an excellent example of how using web standards makes fulfilling a requirement such as this simple.
The site is an example of how custom development based around the real needs of a company or organisation can provide a tailored experience for visitors. In addition the basic structure we have put in place is one that the Trust can build on in coming years to add new features for users around their stated preferences as the underlying system is there.
We are currently working with lbdesign to produce a website and intranet for University College Oxford. The first stage of this project - a content managed website - is now live at www.univ.ox.ac.uk.
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