Tervuren and Sint-Truiden are two municipalities that are not immediately linked, but they had one thing in common: the desire to have a user-friendly website. Both of them partnered with Calibrate as an agency to develop their website.

User focused

The website was built according to the top task philosophy. The focus is on what the user is looking for and this in the most user-friendly way possible. In order to realise this, it is necessary to start investigating what these top tasks are. This research was carried out by our colleagues at AG Consult. In addition to the top tasks, they were also responsible for the user research and the design of the wireframes and the graphical design of the website.

The main top tasks, according to the survey, were opening hours and services. These were given a prominent place on the homepages of the websites. Furthermore, the structure of the site was built up thematically and according to the needs of the visitors. In short: the site structure was not created from the perspective of the municipality, but from the perspective of the visitor.

The development of the new websites

After the strategic phase, the developers of Calibrate got to work. Both the front- and backend of the websites were taken care of. The websites were developed in Drupal. The ideal open source CMS for a quality website.

We realised the development of the Sint-Truiden website, while the corporate identity of the new website was still being created by an external party. Due to a strict deadline, we could not wait for this. A challenge that our developers did not shy away from. Thanks to a good separation of layout, functionalities and content, this new house style could be applied at a later date with a relatively small effort.

After the development of the websites, we went into a test period. The client takes the time to test the website from top to bottom in order to detect any bugs. After approval, the websites were presented to the general public.

Ease of use for website administration

When developing the new websites, much attention was paid to simplifying the ease of use for the website administrator. Thanks to tailor-made tools, we were able to automate and simplify a lot of work for the editors. We will explain a few concrete examples of these user-friendly applications.

Openingsuren Tervuren en Sint-Truiden

1: managing opening hours

We developed a custom-made tool for entering opening hours. The site administrator can make changes in one central place, such as entering public holidays. These are then automatically adjusted in all calendars, including those of the schools, the town hall, the library, etc. This saves the editor a lot of work and ensures that all opening hours are always up to date.

Activiteitskalender

2: link UiT database

We also provided a link with UiT in Flanders. Organisers and city services enter their activities directly and once in the UiT database. The feed from the database is then automatically implemented in the website as a calendar of activities. The editor therefore never has to enter the content twice.

mailchimp

3: link mailing programs

We linked Mailchimp to the website of Sint-Truiden. Composing a newsletter is often a demanding job. Thanks to this link, they can collect published news from their website in a newsletter and then send it via Mailchimp. This automation saves them a lot of work when composing their newsletter. We linked an alternative mailing programme to the Tervuren website, namely Flexmail.

Interested?

We'd be happy to show you a demo of our user-friendly Digital Experience Platform!

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