Website Replatform and Redesign
BookTrusts website was outdated, slow and clunky to use... and that was just the CMS the staff had access too. On the frontend, the site was massive with literally 10,000s of pages, broken user journeys and features that didn't do what the charity or end user wanted. It needed a full overhaul.
Project Outline
The BookTrust website was slowly becoming unfit for use due to its size and functionality. Having been built a number of years back by an agency that would eventually close its doors, handing dev over to a new agency who mainly kept the lights on. It was time to work towards making the site into a much better shop window for the organisation with better user journeys and improved functionality overall... with a face lift thrown in for good measure.
Initial Steps
The start of this project was actually a discovery phase in order to determine the best direction for the website moving forward. Several options were on the table including a simple content audit and face lift right up to a complete rebuild in a new CMS. My role at the start of this was to determine how far we needed to go in order to make the site as user friendly as we wanted/needed. This resulted in the selection of a new agency to work with and the full replatforming of the site - moving from Episerver to Craft CMS.
Some of the main decisions for the replatforming were;
- The vast number of pages on the current site
- The age of the current CMS (several versions behind the latest)
- Cost of updating to the latest version of the current CMS versus moving to a new one
- The future proofing of the site in terms of technology and making the site 'headless'
- Cost of continued maintenance and development for the current site feature
Research
Initial research for this project was two fold.
Firstly, there was the research into CMS's and potential agencies to work with. This was done by the in house digital team at BookTrust, led by myself. Extensive comparisons, benchmarking and reviews were made for both areas. Once a broad decision on the needs of a new CMS were made, then we could narrow down the options before then narrowing a shortlist of agencies to interview based on what CMSs they were use to working with.
Running alongside this was our initial research was a series of internal workshops (https://www.davenorris.art/projects/workshops---internal) that we used to help shape our direction and better understand our users.
This was the start of the second part of our research. As this flowed into the research phase we ran alongside the chosen agency. Due to the extensive research we had done prior to the agency joining us we were able to kick on rapidly to the next stages of the project.
Design Process
The bulk of the project was around 10 months long. With continued research along the way we moved through the Discovery, Define and Deliver phases as outlined by the agency.
In discovery we learnt and shared everything we could about the organisation and the primary audiences, this helped to frame their needs and how we might gain the most value from the end product.
To do this we;
- Ran workshops
- Looked at research insights
- held stakeholder interviews
- Created User journey maps
- Rebuilt the Information Architecture and ran navigation testing with open card sorts
- Wireframed designs and tested them
- Ran tree jack testing
During the define stage we use the insights gathered from discovery to create testable hypotheses. Designing a lofi site prototype to test out our hypotheses. We used the learning to define the scope of work, focussing the priorities on the primary audience groups as recognised in the discovery phase.
To do this we;
- Refined the Information Architecture
- Built a content map
- Designed user journeys through the site
- Continued wireframing
- Continued testing
The delivery of the site was a mammoth task despite all the work leading up to this part of the project.
Once we had the designs and functionality in place, the sites infrastructure having been rebuild from the ground up, we then needed to populate the site with content. The previous site was 10,000s of pages in size, with a multitude of duplication and old, unrequired pages. For this a content audit was actioned and eventually a content migration was able to happen.
Throughout the content migration refinements had to be made in order to reach the best outcome for the end users, including new page layouts, consolidation of pages and the removal of some content altogether.
Stoppers
This project didn't really have any 'pure stoppers' within it. What it did have was some delays due to the level of what we were aiming to achieve. Due to the volume of content migration, there was a delay in launching the site by a couple of weeks for instance.
Content was always going to the be the slight hinderance on this project as BookTrust is a diverse organisation with many different programmes and focuses meaning that there were a large number of stakeholders all wanting slightly different priorities.
However, these differences were managed and balanced well in the final outcome.
Outcome
In April 2025 the new BookTrust website was launched. With improved user journeys site wide, better functionality with regards to things such as the site search, and with an overall more friendly user approach.
The site was received extremely well by stakeholders and end users alike.
Though a long, resource heavy process, the whole replatform and redesign was worth it and will serve BookTrust well in the coming years allowing for future developments and shifts in both technology and focuses of the organisation itself.
