Case Study 04
Designing and coding an event website with complex data feeds
- ClientImago Tech Media
- SectorTech, Events, Exhibitions
- My RoleResearch, branding and front-end development
- SkillsHTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, JQuery, PHP
- Project Time3 months
- Established2017
Introduction
Imago Tech Media got in contact for their upcoming Tech Expo taking place in London Excel. They required an update to a site that was thrown together quickly to promote it, they came to us with rough brand guidelines that we developed further and then converted into a fully-functional website mock up.
Challenge
We wanted to create a fresh look for the Tech Expo, the challenge came about as we were not dealing with unfinalised content that was yet to be decided. I would have to build multiple elements such as tabs, galleries and video players without knowing the real content that would go in.
Solution
I knew that my design had to begin with the navigation, since there were so many sections and elements to the site, I needed to break the navigation into two sections.
I added a 'Find out more' button to keep the less important parts of the site off the main navigation, so as not to over clutter the navigation for regular users.
Styling Feeds
Imago had various feeds for their seminars and speakers, it was our job to integrate these into the site and theme the way they displayed. I had to make filters that would sort content for the most commonly-used terms that users would search for, this would also have to be filtered by date as not all seminars would run on both days.
Cohesive Design
I aimed to keep padding and margins the same throughout the site, along with the colour scheme of their brand, using boxy edges and bold colours I was able to keep every page from feeling like it belonged to the same site even if the content and structure was changing.
With plenty of elements created with the same look and feel, the client was able to drop in sections such as a 'Gallery' tab and videos wherever they pleased. This would allow the site to remain flexible to the content per page and section of the site. Traditional templates wouldn't have worked as there was too much change between content so the element-based layout worked really well.
Results
The client loved the new design and kept using it for the next three Expos we were tasked with keeping it fresh and making minor updates to it. They even asked us to build further sites for their Manchester Expo and then their Cyber Security Expo too. Using the same code base, this was effective to do and adding slight tweaks to CSS to achieved a new look.