Why?
When I (Comes In Handy) took over the role of webmeister I noticed that the design was a bit tired and also not very responsive. No biggie as the website served its purpose well.
More recently, there needs to be a major upgrade to our content management system (CMS - Joomla) so that was definitely the time to update not only the backend (Joomla) but also the front end (the stuff you see).
How?
A few years ago I sent out a survey. Thank you to all who responded. Although I've referred to it whilst we've been developing the site I've been guided by some principles:
- perfect is the enemy of progress
- you can't please everyone
- a camel is a racehorse designed by a committee
- design thoughts have progressed (or rather changed), it's KISS these days.
And also by the 'project brief' objectives:
- Smooth to use – gets the information (whether for interested n00bs, finding out the next run etc.) quickly with minimum clicks
- Align with the "branding" of our group:
- Well-designed graphically (our T-shirts are often very well designed).
- Competent – we can organise annual Oktoberfests despite being drunk, our website should similarly be structured and give the feel of competence (we don't have to be drunk to achieve this). A poor website might deter people, not just virgins, from attending.
- Consistent look and feel, e.g. font, font size, spacing
- Fun and humourous.
- GDPR compliant
- Obvious menu structure
- Responsive (easily viewable on external monitors, laptops, tablets, mobile phones)
- Manageable by future webmeisters who may not be so technie.
We developed it on an Amazon LIghtsail environment. Then we showed it to the Munich mismanagement who were, with some feedback, in favour.
The backend is Joomla 5.x using a Helix Framework and SP Page Builder on Hostpapa infrastructure.
Who's "we"?
The webmeisters: Comes In Handy and Muddy Rucker.
Our approach
As mentioned we used AWS's Lightsail as a development environment.
Our rollout readiness approach was to have the minimum information present and afterwards enter more pages.
Next steps
Having just (19th April 2025) rolled it out our next steps, over the coming weeks, including:
- replacing the free library pictures with ones featuring ourselves
- add to the haberdashery photographs
- publish an events page
- add back some other pages (re-hashes etc.)
- keep an eye on performance
- adjust our process around updating content and maintaining this site
- etc. etc.
But right now I need a drink.
On On
P.S. This is what the old site looked like:
