3 March 2010

The new website and member network of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, has won the Best Use of Web/Digital award in last night’s Transform 2010: The UK’s Rebranding Awards.

With entries from a wide cross-section of organisations from Aviva, The Co-operative Group, Morrisons and Holiday Inn, through to Grant Thornton, DirectGov and Action for Children, this was the inaugural awards from Communicate magazine, and was hosted by Will Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor.

The new website and member network were designed, developed and implemented as part of a larger organisation transformation strategy which was launched last September, a central element of which was the development of a new best-in-class web presence.

Ian Ryder, Deputy CEO of the Institute said “This is a wonderful public recognition for a team that has been central to our whole organisation’s transformation. The team worked extremely hard and have totally changed our web presence and performance. It’s also a great example of real team achievement from our own in-house people and our supporting agencies UffindellWest and Box UK.”

Box UK and UffindellWest contributed to the process by providing consultation and guidance on the web strategy and User Experience for the new sites, both of which are powered by Box’s leading Web Content Management System Amaxus. UffindellWest designed the new BCS visual brand and applied it across all platforms, including the website.

Ian Ryder added “Our 70,000 members, representatives of whom were consulted as we built the solution, have given us some terrific feedback on the new web capabilities. This award is the icing on the cake and I’m delighted that all that hard work has been acknowledged amongst such an eminent group of organisations – I am very proud of all our team.”

In addition to the new branding, some of the key features of the BCS project include:

• A revitalised navigation and site architecture guided by the principles of User Centred Design.
• Improved content such as live news feeds, high quality editorial content and exclusive job vacancies.
• Relevant and powerful online networking for over 70,000 members through the BCS Member Network.

The transformation strategy and new web presence has been a major success. There has been sustained, increased traffic to the website and BCS has gained more visibility online. In November 2009, one article on the site made it to the Digg homepage, resulting in an additional 40,000 visitors to the website. The Member Network has also been hugely successful, with an enthusiastic up take from a diverse range of the membership base.

“Working with BCS is always a wonderful experience. They genuinely value and embrace the importance of User Centred Design and it is reflected in how much thought they’ve put into the usability of the new website and Member Network,” said James Downes, Box UK’s Head of User Experience. “A big congratulations to them for this well deserved recognition.”

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