Recognising the opportunity to design new templates when launching a new CMS, I reduced production time for live data pages from 2 hours to 15 minutes

My role: Tasked with replacing the Met Office’s CMS (Content Management System), I delivered the seamless migration of 10,000s of webpages while enabling responsive design and improving the experience for in-house content creators.

Process; The first step was to complete a content audit to understand what needed to be migrated. During this piece of work I realised this was a unique opportunity to overhaul the information architecture so designed a new megamenu for the website to optimise the discovery of content. I also worked with colleagues in Design to create new brand-aligned templates for different types of content pages.

Outcomes: During the project I saw an opportunity to improve the process for launching pages that included real-time weather data, so designed and delivered a new page architecture that cut production time from 2 hours per page to 15 minutes. Being able to publish webpages with forecast data in near real-time enabled the Met Office to be more responsive to breaking news stories, getting ahead of the competition to maintain a spot at the top of Google’s search page rankings

Key Takeaway:

Even during big projects, continue to look for the ‘little’ wins as they can be key to unlocking new impact and reach. Projects often present unexpected opportunities for improvement, so working with a flexible roadmap is important to allow delivery of them (without allowing scope creep).