Case study: Website and CMS for e-Pay
Working as a sub-contractor for The Brew, we built an accessible website and a feature-rich content management system for the e-Pay National Project (www.e-payments.org.uk).
e-Pay is sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), and through its website and through various events, it aims to provide guidance and tools for local authorities to help them provide e-payment facilities to citizens.
Surfability Solution
The prime contractor on this project, The Brew, provided us with graphics, XHTML templates and a CMS specification. We then adapted an open-source CMS (selected by The Brew) to produce accessible, standards-complaint XHTML code, and to have the following functionality:
- All content is rendered using templates and can be created, updated and deleted within the browser using an editor that can switch between WYSIWIG or raw HTML modes;
- 'Work Streams', 'Events', 'Forums' and 'FAQs' are managed by separate modules that have been tailored for, and fully integrated into, the CMS so that their content is also editable in the browser;
- Another module is provided for uploading images and other media to the website;
- A fixed number of news headlines are automatically inserted on the home page, with links to the full articles;
- Administration pages are only viewable by registered users/editors;
- A dynamic menu is generated for the sections, sub-sections and articles of the project materials (work streams) in the left-hand navigation bar;
- Search results are categorised and displayed as a list of links to the matching pages;
- An events booking system is provided with an automatic process for confirming registrations and the ability to export delegate details into an offline database;
- A web statistics tool has been configured for the site, providing lists of downloaded documents in order of popularity; and
- The website administrator has complete control over the site, including the ability to create users and grant them restricted editing privileges.
We were handed this project at very short notice but we managed to deliver a working website and a fully functional content management system within three weeks.
"The Surfability team worked to a very tight deadline on the e-Pay project, but they were always cool under pressure, and it was a pleasure working with them."
Andrew Clough, Director, The Brew.