Small design shop
MAG Partnership -' Woodland for life' website
Converting a passive archive into an effective web tool
Situation
- Since its inception in 2003 the Regional Woodland Strategy (RWS) had accumulated a mass of tree-related information on its East of England 'Woodland for Life' website.
- A consortium, including bodies such as Natural England, the NHS, RSPB, the Forestry Commission and county councils, commissioned and oversaw the production of an up-to-date archive to house this growing body of data.
- Because of the radically altered 2010 political landscape this archive was in danger of being sidelined. To avert this threat the original project brief requested the construction of a "heritage archive".
Response
- VA argued that more than this "archive" was required by observing that the target mix, of a relatively new audience coupled to a mass of previously unseen data, was a recipe for a 'white elephant' and proposed that a more active measure was needed.
- It was also perceived that the original RWS campaign strap-line was ready for transformation into a branding device for the site that promoted the sustainable benefits of trees and woodlands.
- The core archive document was extensively edited and the site's content rigorously structured around sustainable management thinking.
- Various means of mining the site and/or driving traffic to relevant sub-sections of it were constructed.
- Along with direct access to the information caches the consultant devised:
- an intuitive cost-based decision tree
- a random content signposting mechanic in the web page headers
Results
- An impressive and easily interrogated database was created.
Value Added
Not only was a potentially passive 'white elephant' archive transformed into a highly effective web tool, but its intuitive nature enabled even novice planners to contribute to development projects.
