Transport Industry
In July 2001, following internal restructuring, the Software products centre was contracted to take over maintenance and development of the website for the successful Foresight Vehicle programme. This programme was initiated by the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as a method of co-ordinating and linking up expertise in the development of all aspects concerning future automotive technology. The website was used to promote the programme and as a knowledge base for the various projects that were running under the programme.
A plan was put forward to completely redevelop the site, while retaining the existing look and feel where possible. The ‘new’ site would have better performance, more intuitive navigation, and be easier to update and maintain.
While the new site was being developed the existing site still had to be maintained with issues such as the site navigation having to be tacked immediately. Additionally the contact database had to be incorporated into the website in order to halt the growth of the backlog of new members waiting to be added.
All development took place on special development servers held by the Software Products Centre. This allowed us to implement new features and test their effectiveness without disrupting the busy website or damaging user confidence in the website.
Contact Database
Once pages for adding and maintaining user details were developed with changes being written directly to the database, the ‘intermediate’ site was uploaded to the public web server and went live. With the contact database now live, a subproject of updating the contacts within the database could begin. Using the email address in the database, and an email to fax service from fax.co.uk, an email notification service was implemented and emails were sent to over 1800 people who supplied either an email address or a fax number asking them to log onto the site to check and change their details. 850 other people who supplied enough ‘snail mail’ details were sent a postcard asking them to do the same.
Site Redesign
While the operation to update the contacts database was ongoing the site itself was being updated and optimised.
A more intuitive navigation system was implemented and the content was better organised and more logically structured.
An 'always available' navigation bar was added with links to the main points of interest on the site.
The Home page was better incorporated into the site and was now used as a notice board, highlighting new events and important information.
Long pages were split into shorter linked pages or into completely different sections. This in conjunction with optimising all images resulted in faster loading pages
Active Content
A byproduct of incorporating the contact database into the website was an improved method for handling the project data that was available. Private areas were set up for project workers to update their project information directly, or through the administrator.
The code underlying the active elements of the site was reconstructed to connect to the project database. This allowed more 'dynamic' elements of the site to be implemented such as the main projects area which now automatically updates itself based on the individual project's status.
Email Notice Service
Once the email notification service that was developed to maintain the contact database was in place, it became obvious that the website's role could be expanded to include notifying its users about events directly rather than simply holding information. To this end, email (and fax) notices were sent out about events as they became publicised on the website. For those people that miss the notices, an archive of them was kept online.
Current Status
The Software Products Centre, and TUV NEL’s involvement in the Foresight Vehicle Project came to an end in October 2003 as part of DTI’s decision that the project should be industry managed and led. The DTI took a step backwards from its involvement and administration of the programme, and the website, passed to a motor industry body.
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