We have been using WordPress as content management system Warwickshire County Council for the last two years. In this talk I share challenges faced and lessons we have learn in this process beginning with the outcomes of a design review we carried out last year. The talk touches on points such as: Agile working User centered design WordPress as a CMS for local government

1. Nivi Morales
Web developer
Warwickshire County Council
@nivims
Hola!

2. Wordpress within WCC
In 2013 we migrated our main site to
Wordpress
Have used wordpress.com for corporate blogs
Wordpress powers our mini-sites

3. Wordpress Mini-Sites
Heritage and Culture
http://heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/
Warwickshire News
http://news.warwickshire.gov.uk/
Country Parks
http://countryparks.warwickshire.gov.uk/

4. The design review
Overall design refresh
Reviewing features that were causing usability
problems
Rolling out new features

5. Existing challenges
Header / search bar styling issues on mobile
Secondary navigation issues on mobile
Gradient boxes needed reviewing

6. Possible improvements
Creating a more visually attractive customer
centered page template
Improving the look and feel of our navigation
pages

7. Implementation
Run two development workshops
Review of primary navigation/branding and
search box styling
Gradually removing secondary navigation
Rolling out of flat design/lighter fonts

8. Improvements
Design and development of two new page
templates
Redesign of navigation pages
New icon standards across services

9. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/admissions

10. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/admissions

11. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fostering

12. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/fostering

13. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/libraries

14. www.warwickshire.gov.uk/libraries

15. Lessons learned
Know you frameworks & how much you can
push them out of the box
Always design in the browser
Use analytics / usability testing to drive
development/design
Launch/monitor & iterate based on customer
feedback
Set the rules of the game in writing

16. Useful plugins
Co author plus
User role editor
Enable media replace
Manage tags capability
Captcha

17. Wordpress challenges
Challenges managing modular content
It is not secure out of the box
Frequency of new releases / security updates

18. Wordpress benefits
Better user interface for our authors
Easier to implement progressive enhancement
Support community

19. Nivi Morales
@nivims
Thank you for
listening :)