Background
We were really pleased to receive a brief from Conference Oxford. This brilliant organisation matches the requirements of event organisers with the best spaces in the city. From iconic colleges and famous museums to modern spaces.
We had a clear brief to build a brand new enquiry system and venue management platform, as well as migrate existing data and information from their current database into the new one. Conference Oxford also wanted a redesign of the front end, as they felt that it was both visually unappealing and, more importantly, confusing for users.
Getting started
Given the complexity of the system and the user experience challenge ahead, we engaged the client in an incredibly detailed discovery, spending time interviewing key stakeholders to gain insight into the organisation and the people behind the work.
Gaining an understanding from the people who use the system day in and day out is something we do in every project and is a vital first step for us in order to form a solid foundation for the rest of the project.
Once we had a clear understanding of the needs of the project, we switched our attention to the current system and clarified what Conference Oxford were hoping to achieve with a new product. To do this, we undertook working group sessions where we worked together and picked apart the system. During these sessions, we developed critical workflows and ideas, which created a highly collaborative and productive environment. Working with different focus groups and teams helped us to fully understand the pain points across the board, which we were able to systematically remedy in the design and build phases.
Given the time sensitivities of this project, communication and collaboration were paramount. Weekly conversations with the client and internal project team were vital to ensure things continued to move in the right direction and issues were flagged quickly.
The design solution
The front end of the website needed attention. The current site was unappealing in its look and feel and confusing in its flow. We aimed to create a design that was beautiful and elegant but logical and easy to make an enquiry.
Our design process started with research, looking at a broad range of other websites that showcase buildings and spaces in all sorts of industries. This inspired us with our own ideas on how to present a range of venues in an appealing way.
Next, we developed a photography brief with the client, which resulted in a library of striking and high-quality imagery of each of the event spaces, which we then used as the central focus in the design. Our final touch was to add subtle animations on scrolls, carousels and modals, which resulted in interesting layers of interactivity for the user.
To ensure consistency and a logical design flow, we created three different templates to suit different venues; for example, a college or museum will need space for more large-scale imagery, whereas a small meeting room venue will require less emphasis on pictures. Each template also included a consistent set of icons to help the user quickly determine the different offerings and amenities in each space.
The technical solution
This project had different audiences with different needs, all of which needed to be considered in the technical solution:
- The venue owner.
- The user looking for an event space.
- The Conference Oxford Manager, bringing together the venue and the user and managing both listings and enquiries.
This required two systems which needed to have bi-directional communication:
The main Conference Oxford website hosts the front end information, showcasing the range of incredible venues for users looking for event spaces. The website also housed an enquiry form for users to send their details to the Conference Oxford team to deal with.
The Conference Oxford Manager Platform, is the back-end system used by the Conference Oxford Team to send enquiries to the the venue owners and communicate directly via a bespoke follow up system. The platform also has functionality which allows venues to sign their teams up and respond to enquiries that have come in through the system, whilst keeping Conference Oxford in the loop about the communication flow through the enquiry pipeline.
Through our discovery sessions, we discovered that the ability for venues to edit the web page about their particular space was a challenge on the main website. It was important to us to give venues a way of previewing and editing their page to ensure that it was up to date along with a moderation mechanism for the Conference Oxford team to be able to remain in control of their website and to be kept in the loop on any updates being made to venue pages by the venue owners.
In terms of the build, we selected Drupal to build the main website and used Tailwind 4 based theme. We used VueJS to create the enquiry form, which resulted in a seamless and easy step through, we also used tools with VueJS to improve the overall user experience.
For the Manager Platform, we again developed a Drupal based site and used VueJS to create a reactive interface where actions such as responding to enquiries, changing enquiry status and managing venue information could update to the interface immediately without requiring a full page refresh. This made the platform feel lighter, quicker and more user friendly - like an app rather than a traditional Drupal administration interface.
The outcome
This was a project which was highly complex technically, but also had significant design challenges, all within a tight timeframe. We are happy to say that we delivered on time and on budget, but most importantly, the client loves the whole solution – both the back-end Manager Platform and the front-end website. There has been lots of positive feedback from users, venue managers and key stakeholders.
The cherry on the cake? The client is now able to process more enquiries promptly, leading to an uptake in service use.