McMorran Media

In 2010 the BBC commissioned a new intranet site to present its technology-related training under one umbrella, covering office software, developer technology, broadcast engineering, finance and future tech. Version 1.0 is simply a portal, offering links to training and other learning resources. I wanted to emphasise a simple route into the content with progressive revelation of the topics, so we opted for a design inspired by iPhone iconography.

• bright, colourful presentation to give a positive feeling about technology
• subject areas denoted by a different colour scheme
• Glow-based video carousels
• animated "accordion"-style lists for the glossaries

Gareth Malone is the inspirational choirmaster who popularised choral singing through his series of TV shows such as The Choir: Boys Don't Sing. The programmes have been an amazing success and have resulted in an upsurge of interest in vocal music-making.

Gareth's website is more than just his online CV – it lists his programmes (with links to BBC iPlayer videos) but it's also a rich experience for fans who want to browse the video jukebox or gaze at photos of Gareth. Gareth's site is also the focus of the bid to get the Military Wives Choir to Christmas Number 1!

In response to the demand for information about singing, the site is also an online resource for people who want to learn to sing or join a choir. Key user tasks, based on fan research, are the focus of the home page; objects and friendly human characters draw the eye with calls to action.

To minimise email overload, most fan contact is diverted to Gareth's Facebook page, making the best use of social networking technology.

UK Public Sector (UKPS) is a growing consultancy firm in London which advises local and national government bodies. Their old website was dull and two-dimensional, and it and simply didn't stand out against the competition or say anything about their professionalism. UKPS work with some very high-profile clients such as the Home Office and the 2012 Olympics, so I thought they should have a site which felt as expensive and "glossy" as this week's copy of Vogue.

I sourced a collection of high-quality stock photography featuring positive and professional imagery and set this against a dark grey background so that the rich colours would really stand out. I overlaid clean, minimalist typography on translucent shaded layers which fade in gently as each page loads, without distracting the reader.

Overall, I think this site succeeds in conveying a distinctive and distinguished air to the user.

Floyd Woodrow MBE is an inspiring character who, following a career in the SAS, turned to coaching and conference speaking. He set up Chrysalis Worldwide, a motivational coaching service for individuals and teams.

Floyd wanted to convey his message through some specially-shot videos about his beliefs, with testimonials from business and sporting leaders. I embedded the Flash videos within the site so that they are experienced in context and add richness and emotion to the content. A special playout system even allows iPhone and iPad users to play the videos seamlessly, ensuring a consistent user experience across different platforms.

I set up a blog and a Twitter account for Floyd to write regularly, and meshed these into the site using RSS feeds so that his daily updates deliver a fresh, challenging message to his audience.

Turning Floyd's philosophy around, I then created a set of key action points on the home page, appealing to the user's aspirations and connecting them directly with Chrysalis's services: develop, learn, inspire.

The London Symphony Chorus (LSC) is the partner choir to the London Symphony Orchestra. They perform regularly at London's Barbican Centre, the Avery Fisher Hall in New York and elwhere around the world.

The LSC website functionas as a resource for chorus members to access internal information such as rehearsal times and announcments. Using a member's password, singers can consult rehearsal schedules for various concert projects, access a photo gallery, news and travel information for worldwide tours, as well as download sheet music and other items from a bespoke document management system. The members' area is further enhanced by RSS feeds from a blog and a Flickr album.

Selected information held on these systems is also optionally available to the public, mainly details of forthcoming concerts, by selectively filtering information held on the database. The site went through a further rebrand and revision in 2009.

I like websites that stand out. Sites which stick always have something unique or quirky about them, so when Ana Karakuseivc approached me for a website for her coaching and leadship consultancy, I was charmed by her imaginative visual brief.

Holsitic Learning provides training to individuals and organisations, offering consultancy and a range of coaching programmes, with an emphasis on personal development.

As Ana draws inspiration from philosophy, meditation and psychology, she wanted her work to be reflected with a collage of esoteric, surreal images — flowers, machinery, mountains, birds, even a robot, laid against a vivid carmine red background. Her leitmotif, a luminous lotus flower, confronts the viewer on the home page, and inspirational quotes randomly appear around the site. I also designed a set of high-quality business cards to match this branding.

In her blog, Mindfulness in a Digital World, Ana — a journalist by trade — writes on the subjects of personal development, coaching and self-actualisation. The website is further augmented with an online bookshop selling titles about psychology, personal and spiritual development, learning, media, technology and communications.

BBC Radio Resources had a major departmental restructuring, and they needed to relaunch their intranet site. I was asked to split the site into two new, distinctly branded sites. Continuity was very important as BBC Radio staff rely on this for key online applications, such as staff leave and a studio booking system covering London, Manchester and Bristol.

I was determined to improve the user experience; too much information was arranged around departmental structures and not around user needs. I got together with operational managers and production staff to work out a more logical information architecture. Key improvements include:

• single-click access to booking studios and outside broadcast trucks
• intuitive button interface for accessing key applications
• "top tasks" on every page (from user research)
• clickable maps giving equal access to all regions
• editable pages via Dreamweaver templates
• topic-based help menu
• live iPlayer radio, celebrating BBC output

On launch day, there was a smooth transition to the new brand without interrupting business-critical services. Terry Wogan stayed on-air!

The Digital Media Initiative (DMI) is a project to transform the BBC's media asset management culture from a tape-based system system to an online digital process, unifying production, transmission and archive. The new intranet site was launced as an internal comms exercise, promoting the features and benefits of the new system.

The target audience was thousands of BBC staff working in a wide range of jobs — production assistants, camera crews, video editors, archivists. User testing revealed that all staff were time-poor, working in frantic open-plan offices with piles of tapes on their desks, and didn't have time to read long corporate announcements.

I shaped the information architecture of the site around user needs — the interface addresses key questions like "how will this affect me in my daily job?" using a cast of friendly human characters in broadcast jobs. Every user cited Google as their main entry point to the internet – so I put a great big search box on the front page. The site rated very highly in testing.

I also animated and voiced a short video about metadata in broadcast media.

 Video: The Magic of Metadata

Over four weeks in 2008, children at 40 London schools shot their own short films which were then screened at the British Film Institute in the Four Ells Film Festival. I built the festival website as an online video library, a child-safe, engaging alternative to YouTube with a stylish visual brand devised by a local graphic design company. Key features include:

• a colourful user interface designed for users of all ages – 5-year-olds, parents or teachers
• alternative ways into the content – keyword search, browsing by borough, or by a simple ABC navigation – "A is for...." for the youngest literacy levels
• simple block-serif typography
• a bespoke Flash video player running off a database of videos, schools and an events calendar
• I also animated a set of video idents for the BFI screenings.

For the kids , the sheer buzz of seeing their films on the big screen and on the festival website will be with them for life. This was their 15MB of fame!

 Watch the cinema idents

The Holst Singers is one of London's foremost concert choirs who specialise in performing Russian Orthodox choral music, English part-songs and new compositions. Their problem was a static website which couldn't be updated regularly, so they were not advertising their concerts.

I re-engineered the existing website with a database-driven content management system which enabled choir members to update the concert calendar regularly. New features introduced included:

• A concerts calendar
• Past performances
• A reviews database with press quotes
• Discography and an online shop
• Audio samples of recordings

This brought the site to life by transforming it into an effective "shop window" for a talented vocal ensemble with regular events (including an RSS feed), venue information, and the ability to preview, purchase and download audio tracks. The site is now a vital tool for attracting audiences and new singers.

I also supported the enhanced marketing effort by producing a glossy brochure which was distributed at major London venues like St John's Smith Square.