The International Public Policy Observatory

The Brief

IPPO approached Ultimately Better to redesign and reimagine their existing website for the second phase of operations, handing us a blank slate, visually.

Ultimately requiring a complete WordPress design and build, IPPO were more than happy to be led by our expertise and years of experience. They tasked us to design and create a website with a strong focus on accessible presentation and intuitive functionality to center the visitor’s experience, helping the user find the information they need.

What We Did

To start the process we completed an in-depth audit of the existing IPPO website to assess whether it could be modified to meet the needs of the shifting focus of the organisation.

The audit exposed several issues both with the setup and ongoing maintenance of the website and it was decided a complete redevelopment would be more time and cost efficient.

To best meet the needs of the changing face of the IPPO we issued the team with an extensive set of questions regarding the goals and purposes that the new website would need to achieve, and used the answers to establish an extensive design brief.

Once the brief was in place, we began a multi-step design process with several revisions from team feedback ensuring both client and development were to begin building the new WordPress theme.

Challenges

The IPPO project was not without its challenges. The existing website had a huge library of established content and keeping its URL structure and ease of access in place was crucial to the continued success of the site.

In addition to the large archive of existing content, the site had no monitoring or analytics which meant some of the development decisions, such as backwards compatibility, had to be based on experience and instinct.

Finally, the web host utilised by the IPPO had issues with some of the technical changes that needed to be made, including the setup of a new primary domain and forwarding from the previous one.

Results

Despite the challenges, the site build was a resounding success and continues to deliver for the team.

Working closely with Sarah and Ayden at the IPPO allowed us to deliver a technically excellent, polished look and feel with reduced reliance on third party plugins, an updated and more intuitive content entry process utilising the new WordPress Gutenberg editor and a perfomant browsing experience delivering content to the visitor’s browser whatever their connection speed or device.