We’ve made some changes to our website to reflect changes within the organisation and the products we’re offering.
In this blog, we talk about what we’ve changed and why.
There have been massive changes at LocalGov Drupal over the past three months and we needed our website to reflect these.
The old IA worked well but was becoming outgrown as the organisation developed.
There were (and in some cases still are) questions around:
- better showcasing both the LocalGov Drupal CMS and Microsites platform
- the suppliers section now that we have paying subscribers
- better demonstrating features (including directories and microsites)
- how much of the resources content we needed on the main site
- displaying live LocalGov sites
- providing clarity on our new structure and Open Digital Cooperative
The recent raft of changes goes some way to dealing with a number of these issues, not least better showcasing the LocalGov CMS and Microsites Platform.
The main navigation
This has a few new items and lost some of our previous ones.
The biggest change is the addition of top-line navigation for LocalGov CMS and the Microsites Platform.
Giving these prominence focuses the site on what we’re all about, helping users to find what they are most interested in more quickly.
The new LocalGov CMS section contains a separate resources section and some new example sites.
The Microsites section is constructed in the same way. However, currently, it only has a resources page and will have case studies once there are live sites to tell you about.
Other changes
Many pages in the About us section have been edited to reflect that we are now run and supported by Open Digital Cooperative.
This includes updates to:
The Councils section has been expanded to include additional information on the benefits of using our platforms for individual teams, more information on the subscription process, and a list of all the live LGD sites (something we get asked about a lot).
The Suppliers section has been amended to show those suppliers who are now actively subscribing to the platform (or have been invoiced). Thanks to them for their commitment to the project. We’ve also made the process of membership/subscription clearer on the membership page.
Finally, the resources section has been slimmed down to feature only the community resources, rather than those for the specific products - as these now have their own pages under LocalGov CMS and Microsites.
Shift to Microsites
As you’ll see, aside from the main navigation the homepage hasn’t changed very much.
We plan to re-design this, later in the year, when we migrate the site to our Microsites platform. Amongst other things, we hope to use the page to give more prominence to the products and better acknowledge those who financially contribute to the project.
Away from the homepage, we’ll also be able to use directories to show the councils and suppliers that are involved.
We’ll keep you posted about this work.
We know there’s still a bit to do and as always it’s an ongoing process.
If you have any feedback on what we’ve done so far or ideas for the future please email us at hello@localgovdrupal.org, all comments are welcome.
Acknowledgments
We’d also like to thank Michael Wignall from Data Content Reach, who worked on the new IA and the previous iterations of the site.
He’s now left LGD to work on other projects. We wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavours.
Thanks also to Maria from Agile Collective for her help on the technical side of this refresh.