Case Study: cimsoutheast.org.uk has changed - big time!

- the web developers explain

 

Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Activists across the South East region can now maintain pages, plan events, recommend speakers, discuss hot topics and a whole lot more on the newly launched www.cimsoutheast.org.uk.

This new web site with its Content Management System (CMS) is designed to become a key resource for Members and Activists - and as some have already found, it's exceptionally intuitive and easy to use. This is a brief glimpse behind the scenes, to give you an idea of how the whole thing works.

Content management

Content Management Systems are nothing new, but they're normally only used by a few individuals, with a level of technical skill - typically, someone in IT.  It was clear from our initial brief, that this site required content management on a really grand scale - and by individuals who simply don't have time to bother with technical details.

So the challenge for us, was to deliver a web site that would allow maximum flexibility and intuitive access to content, while protecting  the consistency of the design and the Chartered Institute of Marketing brand, and the integrity of the content. 

We knew that trade-offs wouldn't be on the agenda!  Our clients had set the bar high, and it was to get higher over the course of the project.  The key requirement, was accessibility.

Access for all

To ensure that the site is equally accessible for the able-bodied and those with, for example, visual impairment, it conforms with the AAA standard for accessibility, as defined by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). That's the very highest level.

From a developer's point of view, AAA isn't that hard to deliver - what is harder, is to deliver it within an attractive, friendly, and content-driven web site!  Because the whole purpose of the site is to enable Activists to manage the content, so the latest information is always available for everyone.

Authorised Activist administrators can change virtually anything on the web site: there's no need to understand anything about the web or markup languages: you can just makes changes as simply you would in Microsoft Word, for example.

To reconcile this very high level of participation with the need for security and compliance with the AAA standard we've provided a set of easy-to-use formatting tools. By using these tools, the content will remain AAA-compliant.

All changes are of course logged, so there's a clear audit trail. Administrators will always be asked to confirm that they really want to delete information - and they can easily make a backup before making any changes. 

Benchmark project

Freshleaf Media delivered this web site on time, to specification, and within budget - and as you know, it's extremely difficult to do that without close co-operation all along the line. In terms of project management, to be honest, it's become something of a benchmark for us - we worked closely with our clients throughout the project, discussing their evolving requirements and resolving issues as they arose, before they could turn into problems.