Welcome to the new site!
The project to deliver the new site has taken nearly a year and has seen contributions from around 30 people in the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and partner organisations.
Before we got going we ran a survey on the current web site to tell us what people liked and disliked about it. The main criticisms are illustrated by these comments:
The full report (PDF, 270KB)“I couldn’t find walking info”
“When you do a search of your site, many of the links don’t work. It is very frustrating”
“It’s not the easiest to navigate”
“It doesn’t seem to be aimed at tourists at all”
“Where are the various parts/attractions/hills? The assumption seems to be that everyone visiting the site knows all this, I don’t, and I still don’t”
“Website gives no sense of enthusiasm for [the Beacons]. Tell us why they are special, why they are protected”
“More info for walkers, weather, more on parking”
Consequently the philosophy behind the new site is user-centric design. What that means in English is that the site should be deigned to work for the public, both visitors and residents, and the Park’s other stakeholders, rather than merely reflecting our internal structure.
So the terms used in the navigation and titles are kept as short and simple as possible. This may occasionally frustrate the knowledgeable specialist but we’d rather annoy a few of them than the vast majority of the public and hopefully there’s enough substantial content in the site to keep them happy as well.
The site is structured into 7 themes, or KSPs (key service pages), each with several levels of sub menus. A lot of thought has gone into the terms used for these and what goes where.
Recently we’ve had some outside assistance with terminology, structure, images, writing style and various content areas, principally the general content such as “Who we are” and “What we do”, “Visiting” and “Geopark”.
If you have (constructive) criticisms and suggestions please either contact the relevant content manager from the list or drop me a line and I’ll make sure it gets to the right person.
In particular we'd like suggestions for related content items, i.e. linking areas of the site together, and for good external links.
Work in progress:
- Cymraeg! Lots more to come.
- The interactive mapping is in its infancy and will develop rapidly over the next few weeks with specific mapping for every KSP e.g. walking, riding and cycling routes, geology, integrated photos, etc.
- Warden Service information, due by end of August at the latest.
- Some top navigation pages need more work
- More contact forms with upload features
- Even more lovely images
- We need to develop a tour of the Park area which integrates the mapping and photography
- Online job and volunteer applications will be enabled
- Lots of other little glitches and niggles
Please let us know what you'd like to see on the site; we're particularly keen to hear from you if you're a local resident and would like to work with us on developing content for your community.
Many thanks,
Paul Funnell, Web Project Manager
Gweithredoedd Dogfen
- Beth sy'n newydd
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You can now view planning applications, related documents and comment on them online
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