• Fully responsive mobile-first site

• Designed to engage 16 and 17 year olds voting for the first time in the Scottish Referendum

• Provides a platform where no question is to big, small or “stupid” to ask about the referendum

• BBC News stories and features

• Quiz questions pushed out daily over social media

• Ask your own question about the referendum

How did the project come about?

• Sept 2013– BBC Connected Studio workshop in Glasgow– How to engage 16-17 year olds voting for the first time?– 1 day, 20+ teams, 2 minute pitch

• Nov 2013– Build phase– Refine concept– Build a working prototype– 2 days, 4 teams, 10 minute pitch

• Feb 2014– Proposal meeting with BBC in London

• Mar 2014– Interface build

• May 2014– Site launched

What part did I play?

• Connected Studio– Ideas generation– Technical expertise and recommendations

• Build studio– Building a working prototype from previous

wireframes – Updating design on the fly as new assets were

created

• Proposal meeting– Listening to the client’s requirements and advising

on the best course of action to develop the site

What part did I play?

• Project build

– Unavailable for the build due to other priorities

– Contractor hired to complete the work

– Provided support and direction to contractor, with regular check ups to ensure they were managing their workload effectively

– Functionality that the contractor needed assistance with was developed outside of working hours

– Liaising with technical team at BBC wherever necessary to ensure a smooth setup on their systems

Our approach

• Site built using WordPress as a CMS

• Question functionality to be added via a custom plugin

• Front-end built using Grunt, LESS, jQuery and QUnit

• Caching and load balancing required to cater for large volumes of traffic expected

• Why?– WordPress flexible enough for our needs– Technologies that we were already familiar with– Experience of building custom plugins for

WordPress– Content editors already familiar with WP admin

pages

Testing

JavaScript code was tested using QUnit

User testing carried out by PM and client

Project hurdles

• BBC insistent that we use Tumblr

– Did not want to host the site themselves

– “That’s what young people are using”

• We persuaded them that:

– Target audience didn’t really use Tumblr

– WordPress was a better CMS option

– Hosting could be provided on Amazon web server

Project hurdles

• Contractor unavailable shortly before go live– Contractor had completed his allocated time

– Last minute amends required before Radio 1 academy event

• Other developers approached to work overtime– Other developers brought on to work overtime

– Able to get them up to speed quickly

– Liaising with PM to ensure everyone knew what was expected of them

What next?

“Ask” Referend-erm? sister site created for Radio 1 Academy event

What next?

Promoted across BBC online channels

What next?

Further BBC work including projects for…

What next?

Ideas refined for future projects

Thank you for listening

Questions?