A new site for a new day
As one of the founding partners of Speakers for Schools, we are delighted to announce the launch of the new site. The launch took place in line with Speakers for Schools Week, the culmination of the charities great work, during which UK schools were visited by the likes of Robert Peston, George Alagiah, David Cameron and Nick Clegg.
Our journey with Speakers for Schools began back in 2010 when Robert Peston first introduced us to his big idea: to create a pool of speakers from different backgrounds who are keen to share their expertise and experience with young people, free of charge. We immediately wanted to be a part of it. When we originally launched the site, there were no more than 60 speakers on board. Today there are 826 active speakers with more joining everyday.
It was this growth that inspired the redesign.
How we went about it
The client loved the look and feel of the design so we didn’t tamper with that much. The focus from the start was on using technology to enhance the experience of the site for both the user and the client.
We set about rebuilding the site in Drupal, our content management platform of choice.
How we improved the experience for the client
One of the issues with the original site was that the client relied heavily on us to make updates. In response to this we created a site that gave the the client full control over content.
Previously, the processes of treating and uploading speaker images was managed by entirely by Miura and often involved the creation of several different graphics for each speaker. Now the client can upload one image for each speaker directly to the site, crop it as required then CSS resizing takes care of the rest.
The original Flash-based image banner on the homepage has been replaced with a fully dynamic javascript solution that displays a random selection of speakers every time the page is refreshed.
When we launched the first phase of the site, the Speakers for Schools typeface, Whitney, was not available as a web font. We were finally able to replace all of those graphic headers with web fonts, giving even more control to the client .
We stripped back any other elements which might impact the performance of the site – drop shadows, image borders, etc, giving the new site a fresher look and feel. We also added a news and media section and a video library, providing the client with a forum to shout about their good work.
How we improved the user experience
Previously users could not search for specific speakers. Now all speakers are searchable by topics and by name. Schools interested in requesting a speaker from ‘Business and Economics’ can now filter the speakers database and view the full array of speakers for this subject. There is a wealth of information available to users in the form of FAQs and background information, as well as an enhanced application process.
We are delighted to play a small part in delivering the message of Speakers for Schools and look forward to supporting their great work into the future.