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New and Improved website

websites by cirox
websites by cirox

The website has been running for almost five years now in its current form, based on the WordPress Content Management System. Over that time, it has been extended with plugins such as the Timely calendar but is largely as originally implemented. Despite being heavily standards based, it has been noted that the user experience could be improved on, but as with all such things, finding time for significant redevelopment has proved problematic.

Well, time for a sprucing up. New look, new features and new structure ready for the next five years, largely due to the Asteria theme by towfiqi, a feature packed, stable and value for money theme. Plus a bit of custom css. If I say so myself, it looks particularly good on iPads but is equally effective on larger FullHD screens, smaller wide screens and 4:3 ratio screens. It is also fully optimised for mobile devices.

Navigation

Navigation has been streamlined in response to user feedback. Nice simple buttons now feature heavily with a simplified menu/page structure. The Calendar is now right up front so information about upcoming events is only one click from the homepage. Features such as social media sharing buttons have been made less intrusive whilst still being accessible for those who use them. Web2.0 language has been replaced by more user friendly language, so ‘tags’ have become ‘topics’. The news section now stands alone, accessed from the News menu item with all the individual news pages sharing a common News menu rather than all the news pages cluttering up the main menu.

Calendar

The rather visual posterboard view has been replaced with a more traditional agenda view which focusses on dates and times with clear links to further information. This view is also ideal for printing, making it easier to print a list of upcoming events to stick on a notice board or wherever. Dates/times have been removed from individual articles so as to avoid any potential confusion with event dates/times.

New look!

The new site includes more graphical content, highlighting the range of topics covered in our events. Alongside this emphasis on visual content, the new theme uses a cleaner colour scheme based around a monochrome appearance with purple tints for accented features such as hyperlinks.


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