Background
We were extremely happy to win the tender for a new website for the iconic Oxford University Christ Church College. This is a special place with a long history dating back to its inception in the reign of Henry VIII.
A place of worship, a place to study and a tourist destination, Christ Church’s website has a tall order to fulfil the needs of three distinct audiences. The key challenge was how to balance the needs of these different parts of the community. Most University college websites are primarily focused on the acquisition of new students whilst providing relevant information for existing students. Christ Church is more complex; it’s also a cathedral that serves the wider public and a top visitor attraction that draws in tourists from around the world.
Getting started
We started our development journey as we always do, by deep-diving with the client and undertaking a wide range of interviews. We talked to over 50 members of the Christ Church community, covering college, cathedral and the visitor team. We talked to undergraduate students and postgraduate students, academics, the archivist, the steward, the conference and events team, the alumni office, the choirmaster, the archdeacon and the head of house. We listened, we questioned, and we gathered together everything that we learned. We wove the different perspectives together into a single cohesive narrative that expressed who they were in all the complexity and depth of a community that is both prestigious and historic and vibrant and outward-looking.
Audiences
From an audience perspective, Christ Church is a complex place with a three-strand audience.
It’s a college in the University of Oxford, but it is also a cathedral that serves the Diocese of Oxford with a famous choral tradition. In addition, it is one of the most visited tourist sites in Oxford.
As a college, it wants to attract the brightest young people as undergraduate and postgraduate students and engage with schools and parents to encourage young people from all backgrounds to apply and to support applicants from under-represented backgrounds. It wants to highlight the work of its academic researchers and celebrate the diversity of the academic community.
As a cathedral, it wants to open its doors to worshippers and to welcome visitors and pilgrims from around the world. Everyone is welcome to join a service and listen to the renowned choirs or offer up a private prayer. The shrine of St. Frideswide draws in pilgrims.
As a tourist attraction, visitors to Christ Church come for the beauty of the architecture, the breathtaking cathedral, the layers of history, the connections to Lewis Carroll and WH Auden, to see the ‘Harry Potter’ staircase and the gem of a Picture Gallery with its treasure trove of art.
Our design solutions
We kept in mind the need to present Christ Church as one community, whilst also treating them as an individual within the audience segment that they belonged to. This meant navigating them to the part of the website that was relevant to them whilst ensuring that they were exposed to other parts of the site that could pique their interest, but without getting lost within the layers of the site. For example, a prospective student might also want to learn more about the history or architecture of the buildings within the visitor-focused section but then find their way easily back to the undergraduate information.
From an aesthetic perspective, we wanted the design of the website to reflect the traditions of beauty and excellence that are present in both the physical spaces and in the experiences of the academic, musical and religious communities. Christ Church is special. A place of great architectural heritage, of cultural and literary interest and a community with the highest standard of learning.
To ensure a smooth and satisfying navigational journey for the three different audience groups, our solution was to develop an overarching design approach and divide the site into three main sections, each of which has a tailored design and a differentiated set of colours to help guide navigation and wayfinding. However, as we progressed the site design, it became clear that there was a need for an internally-focused site in addition to an externally-focused site.
Our technical solutions
The scope of the project was extended to include an intranet to serve the needs of current members of the college community, with the website focusing on the external communities. This approach allowed for a streamlining of the content and provided an intelligent split for both content and functionality. Technically, we used Drupal for the core of both the website and intranet.
We continued to work with Christ Church on a range of additional pieces of functionality to expand the range of services on offer, including a digital community noticeboard.
We also developed a bespoke system on the intranet to manage the digital screens around college, allowing the communications team to manage the display of information on each screen from a central portal. One set of information can be displayed on the screen in the lodge at the main entrance and a completely different set of information displayed to visitors at the visitor entrance. We used VueJS as the display technology for the digital signage.
We’re currently in discussions with the Christ Church team on how to extend this functionality even further.
The outcome
This was a multi layered project which used digital technology to pull a narrative together to serve the three foundations of the Christ Church purpose – as an Oxford college, a cathedral and a tourist destination with global appeal.
We successfully pulled all of the parts of the college together with a jointly agreed story that forms the foundation for the website content and the way that the college talks about itself.
A website that meets the needs of all part of the community (potential students, worshippers and visitors), as well as an intranet that meets the needs of the college community of students, academics and staff.
A digital signage system enables the communication team to flexibly control the content of the digital screens around the site.
We continue to work with Christ Church with ongoing support to enhance and update with new features and help the team to develop their ideas.