Improving website navigation and structure for SFTT.

About:
A Scottish Enterprise and Forest Industries-Supported initiative, The Scottish Forest and Timber Technologies (SFTT) was established to identify industry issues and opportunities, formulate actions, promote collaborative working and disseminate information within the Forestry Industry in Scotland. The organisation encompasses all individuals, companies and organisations involved with the planting, management and harvesting of forests, through sawmilling, pulp, paper and board production to the production of higher value manufactured goods.

The Brief:
Innovation Digital was approached with a view to reviewing and refreshing SFTT's web presence. The site needed a modern look and feel, along with an improved navigation and content structure. Above all, there was a real requirement to engage target audiences and improve users' experience of the site.

The existing SFTT website had a vast amount of useful information, however a complex site structure meant much of this was 'hidden'. It was important therefore to improve information architecture, allowing audiences to find information with ease.

As part of the project, Innovation Digital was to develop a stronger brand identity. The brand was to reflect the organisation's regional presence, highlight key industry themes/issues and its support for key markets such as woodfuel/biomass and sustainable construction.

The Results:
A comprehensive user-centred design process ensured that the new site was 100% focused around the needs of the user, whilst portraying a modern, refreshed look and feel. With its simplified structure and layout, clean, modern design and enhanced brand identity, the new site provides the perfect vehicle for SFTT to communicate and engage with audiences.

The easy-to-use Umbraco Content Management System, in the form on Umbraco 4.1, meant the site can be easily updated by staff, including editing page copy and adding images. This gives the organisation maximum freedom and convenience to add their latest news, events and features to the website effortlessly, ensuring that stakeholders are aware of their latest activities.

Some other functional features included an encrypted security login system, incorporation of the Scottish eBusiness Forum, automatic archiving, links management, image manipulation and an events management system with calendar view. The system also offers a flexible and modular Search Platform that easily scales and provides a single process to providing a complete, unified index of structured and unstructured information.

Innovation Digital also provided training in the form of Umbraco CMS Training, Google Analytics Training and Search Engine Optimisation Training.

Related work

Gas Safe Register

Enterprise CMS - Alterian CMC