By migrating to a block editor version of WordPress, we empowered the communications team to take control of their content and design
University Alliance needed their website to align to a new brand strategy and offer better flexibility
University Alliance, a national body representing leading professional and technical universities in the UK, needed a website overhaul.
The site needed to align with their new brand strategy and offer greater flexibility and control to their communications team. With more focus on the needs of employers, education (schools and tertiary education) and peers (other higher education institutions).
Outcome
We worked closely with the University Alliance team to bring their vision for the website to life.
“Having developed a new brand strategy and identity, we needed to be able to tailor the structure, look and feel to cater to new audiences. We took the opportunity to work with dxw to make the back end of our website much easier to use as well.
We’re really pleased with the finished product. As an organisation we work in a fast-moving environment and now we can very quickly and easily make updates to the site while always maintaining a great experience for users and a consistent look and feel. The updates have allowed us to be much more creative in the way we use our site while supporting us to cater to a wider audience.
The dxw team were great throughout the project – keeping us in the loop by inviting us to their daily stand-ups and sharing their project management tolls with us so we felt like an extension of their team.”
Annie Bell, Head of Communications and External Affairs, University Alliance
A more flexible platform
University Alliance’s original website was built on a classic WordPress template, which limited the communications team’s ability to make changes. The site was highly prescriptive, offering little flexibility in terms of design and content updates. This rigidity meant that even minor adjustments required raising tickets and waiting for changes, slowing down the team’s workflow and stifling creativity.
To address these challenges, we helped University Alliance migrate their content to a new block editor version of WordPress.
The block editor is component-driven, providing much more freedom and flexibility. This upgrade allowed the communications team to change the look and feel of pages independently. By reducing the need to rely on developers for every update, the team could focus more on creating engaging content that resonated with their different audiences.
Content migration: a major undertaking
Migrating content from the old site to the new one was a big task, involving over 1,500 posts. Our team took the time to fully understand the existing content and the vision for the new site to ensure a smooth transition. We combined both automated and manual processes to efficiently transfer and update the content.
The University Alliance communications team had a deep understanding of their content, so their involvement was crucial at every stage. We held regular stand-ups, communicated daily via Slack, and provided ongoing training to make sure the team was comfortable with the new system.
This close collaboration allowed us to quickly iterate on feedback and ensure the final product met their needs.
Enhancing content structure and navigation
A significant part of the project involved reshaping the site’s content structure to better target different audiences. We created a new landing page to improve the navigation, implementing a fully editable mega menu and improving the search functionality for a better user experience.
The area formerly for students was dropped with sections aimed at employers, members and education made easier to navigate, which went in conjunction with the University Alliance team making content changes to reflect the intended audiences.
We worked with the team to categorise existing content and automated the categorisation process. The mega menu was designed to highlight these changes, along with new topic landing pages, making it easier for users to navigate the site.
Screenshot of University Alliance website menu
Design and accessibility improvements
We hosted a design workshop exploring how to update the look and feel and bring the site in line with the new brand guidelines (brand shapes, typography, colour palette). We also carried out an audit of the components and patterns, figuring out what we could use in the block editor context, which ones to drop etc, to create a lean pattern/component set.
While the focus wasn’t on a complete redesign, we evolved the site’s design to make good use of University Alliance’s dynamic brand. This included incorporating new colours and shapes to create a more visually engaging experience.
We also ensured the site was fully responsive, catering to a user base that increasingly accessed the site via mobile devices. Accessibility was a priority throughout the design process, ensuring that all users could easily navigate and interact with the site.
Ongoing support and future projects
Our work with University Alliance didn’t end with the site launch. We continue to provide support and are collaborating on new projects in the pipeline.