Chelsea Arts Cub web development project

Chelsea Arts Club previously had a limited approach to online content and the sharing of information even though they had a range of engaging content and events likely to appeal to members, as well as to a wider audience.  

This approach was limiting member awareness around events the club was hosting, while also potentially preventing other audiences from discovering more about the club and its events. Chelsea Arts Club had identified a need to showcase more engaging content through its website to truly exhibit the vibrant community of the club. 

However, the existing WordPress CMS was too static and rigid to reflect content in a dynamic way.

Templates were hard coded, meaning there was no flexibility available to the Chelsea Arts Club team in terms of how they could manage their website content. Elements such as images and text had to be added in a certain order, while content such as videos or member stories were almost impossible to include. 

Additionally, each page type had a specific content template which was hard coded. For example, if staff wanted to update an information page such as an FAQs page, content needed to be changed at the template level, rather than at the page-specific level. This limited how staff could upload content and present it on the website.  

Ultimately, the previous CMS set up was holding back the website and preventing it from reaching its full potential. 

Our work started with a full UX audit after which we put together some recommendations. We suggested making updates to the WordPress back end, as well as edits to the front end. Our design team helped rejuvenate the look and feel of the website, while maintaining the existing Chelsea Arts Club branding and colour palette as the client had requested.   

We focused on creating a content toolkit. This allows staff to manage content easily and post dynamic, engaging content that is reflective of the character of Chelsea Arts Club. 

The new content toolkit includes elements such as embedded blocks, gallery blocks and full video blocks with HTML embeds. 

To address the issue caused by the pre-existing templates and content limitations, we updated the back end of the website to provide the Chelsea Arts Club team with the flexibility and control they need to deliver content.

 

We did this by providing one default template, which can be used to create multiple landing pages – each with their own distinct layout using facets from within the content toolkit. 

Additionally, we made improvements to the content elements on the event pages and exhibition pages. Previously, these exhibition pages could only feature limited content elements such as text and imagery.

Despite Chelsea Arts Club having videos from artists, they could not be used due to the site’s limitations. Following our work, the team can now embed videos and deliver content that will resonate with audiences.  

As with all our projects, accessibility  was at the heart of our work. We created new design mockups that were accessibility-centric, giving the Chelsea Arts Club team the chance to design pages in a way that accommodates different audiences, while also being dynamic and in keeping with their own preferences.