Hi all at Chester,

I'd like to introduce myself and the team from Torchbox. I am Olly Willans, I'm the Creative Director at Torchbox (actually I started Torchbox with my business partner Tom Dyson, the Technical Director, almost ten years ago now). 

The main man on our side is Bryan Gullan, he's the day to day project manager and has got a track record of delivering large content managed websites. He is definitely a 'safe pair of hands'.

By the way, you can find out more about us (including mugshots) here... 

JP Stacey is our technical lead on the project. He leads on Drupal and other integration. Garrett Coakley is the other main Drupal implementor on the project. What's Drupal? It's the 'content management system' the interface that lets you update the website yourselves.

The key people in the design team are Nick Lee and Wes West, both battle hardened web designers. For Chester, we've worked up two design concepts, one of which we'll end up taking forward to be the new Chester website.

Ian Bellchambers is overseeing the business side of things, contracts etc.

And, I oversee the design and lead on the user experience... what do people really come to the site to do? how do we really engage them? how do we make the experience as fluid and easy as possible? how do we get 'em to come back? or better still, come to an open day etc. etc.

Anyway, we're all very excited to be working on this project. It's a challenging space with lots of universities doing interesting stuff. And we're looking forward to helping the team put Chester right 'up there', online.

This post may not get too many readers, as it is ill-timed being just before Christmas, but if you've got this far, treat yourself to the Torchbox Christmas video card... go to our website and on the front page, put your name into the box and watch it whirl....

Happy Christmas,

Olly and the team at Torchbox

Since the last posting there has been great progress in the re-development of the university’s external website.

Firstly the selection of a development agency that will help create the new external website has been made by the Senior Management Team (SMT).

SMT stated that each of the companies that presented their vision for the new university website brought a number of exciting proposals. Nevertheless like the old saying goes ‘there can only be one winner’ and SMT made the decision to appoint the development agency Torchbox to lead the project.

Established in 2000, Torchbox is based in Oxfordshire and provide high-quality, cost-effective solutions for clients who come primarily from the charity, NGO and public sectors.

With the development agency onboard, the initial scoping of the project could begin, and was undertaken in late October to early November 2008. This has included user perception surveys and focus groups undertaken on both university campuses with students and staff.

Finally I would like to say a big ‘hello’ to everyone; I am Neil Martin and am the new project coordinator for the University and have taken on the role from Hannah Jewkes.

If anyone has any questions about the new website or wants to get involved feel free to contact myself on 01244 512458 (ext 2458) or via email: neil.martin@chester.ac.uk

To create the new website we will be enlisting the help of an external website development agency to design a new site and implement a Content Management System.

We selected 5 agencies and asked them to tender. The two most suitable agencies will be presenting to SMT on 24th September, and a decision will hopefully be made soon after that.

Once the decisions are made and all the legal things are sorted - it will be all systems go with creating the new website!

If in the meantime you want to make a changes to your content - big or small - contact me on hjewkes@chester.ac.uk.

I look forward to letting you know which company we have chosen!

We have drafted a brand new site map for the the new website.

The aim is to create logical, user-firendly navigation throughout the new site based on this new sitemap.

It shows both the new structure and the main navigation - the green ones are what you will see across the top of every page.

This sitemap is still a draft and is open to changes - so please contact me if there's something you want to change or query. Also, if you can't see where your department would fit into the structure - please let me know.

• The Sitemap

Contact me:
h.jewkes@chester.ac.uk
Ext 2473

If you weren't able to attend a workshop, you can still find out what was discussed in the workshop notes I've put together. If you have any comments or queries about this please contact me.

Thanks to all those who attended the Website workshops. We were happy to see so many people interested in this exciting project, and found your comments and ideas very useful for helping us create the new site.

Invites have gone out to departmental representatives for workshops on the University’s external website.

The website will soon be undergoing a radical redesign and restructure, and we want to include in that process a representative from each department who is responsible for their department’s content.

The workshop will be an opportunity for people across the University to input their thoughts and ideas into the new site project. We also hope that the workshop will be thought-provoking and inspirational for all who attend.

We will be holding the workshop on two dates:

Wednesday 11th June 2pm - 4pm
Wednesday 2nd July 2pm - 4pm

If you haven’t received an invite, but have responsibility over your department’s content on the site please contact Hannah Jewkes (h.jewkes@chester.ac.uk)

The first post...

The University of Chester website will be undergoing a redesign, and I, along with my colleagues, will be helping to manage this exciting project. This blog is here as one way we intend to communicate and involve staff and students in shaping the new website.