The Customer
DARO, The Development and Alumni Relations Office is an office of
the University of Manchester, dedicated to providing services to former
students as well as a broad range of fund-raising activities.
Visitors to the site range from the recently graduated to those beyond
retirement age, and the alumni are located globally. With this in
mind, DARO required a website that was clean and modern, working within
the University branding guidelines, whilst putting usability to the
forefront and avoiding alienating any of its potential users.
The range of services offered by DARO is large and ever-expanding
and includes such offerings as a gift shop, University Mastercard,
reunions and special events and lifelong e-mail for former students.
With this in mind, it was important to come up with a solution which
allowed visitors to easily access these disparate services as well
as being tempted to explore new ones. It was also a priority that
DARO could themselves quickly and easily add or remove a service or
update those pages in-house.
The Design
The design considered all of this and we opted to bring the focus
onto those services by displaying enticing links throughout the site,
encouraging the visitors to click through and discover what lay beyond.
We also created an entry page which picks up the most popular services
and allows the user to go straight to a home page which highlighs
that service.
The drop-down menu system allows the visitor to easily see what is
contained within a section and, as we shall see later, this can be
updated by DARO through the online administration section.
Finally, we created a library of images from around the University
rather than use stock imagery which has lost its impact through over
use. The aim of this new imagery was to create a freshness and sense
of intimacy, jogging the memories of former students by presenting
details of the buildings. This 'modern' nostalgia, as we termed it
(i.e. not sepia toned and nostalgic in a sentimental way) is added
to through the use of random or fixed images throughout the sites
pages.
By changing constantly it is hoped these will stimulate the viewers'
interest and add value to the text on those pages.
The Development
In Phase One, the Content Management System (or administration section)
allows the Administrator to log-in using a unique user-name and password.
Further down the line, the system will update the footer of each modified
page with that persons name and the date, so it is easy to see who
carried out the last update and when.
With accessibility legislation setting the agenda, it has become necessary
for public service sites such as this to offer a text only version.
With the database we created behind the site holding all the content,
we are able to re-purpose this and build a text only site on-the-fly;
one that is updated as the main site is updated.
If you would like to know more about accessibility and what is can
mean for your organisation please contact Nick
Gould.
The Content Management System allows the site editor to add or remove
pages and to include these within the drop-down menu system. They
even have a choice as to which position the item will appear in and
can demote or promote all other pages within the menu. With one click
of acceptance this appears on the live site along with the new pages.
Text and body images throughout the site can be amended via the CMS.
When completing amends to a page the Administrator has the ability
to choose an image from the library which can be set to be fixed on
that page. Alternatively, the page can have an image displayed which
is chosen from the library at random each time the page is loaded.
The drop-down menus and the text menus at the head of each page are
generated from the database, so these are kept constantly up-to-date.
Working from the same system is the Sitemap which automatically changes
to reflect amends within the website (e.g. the addition or removal
of a page).
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