Developing new website - Llanwrtyd Wells Community Transport

Rydyn ni wedi cael llawer o adborth gwych am y wefan ar ôl ei hail-ddylunio. Diolch i bawb sydd wedi anfon neges o ganmoliaeth ac awgrymiadau! Dyma ychydig mwy o wybodaeth am SUT aethon ni ati i ail-ddylunio ein gwefan...

Rwy'n gobeithio y bydd y postiad hwn o ddiddordeb i ddarllenwyr cyffredinol. Mae rhai manylion technegol wedi'u cynnwys oherwydd gallent fod yn ddefnyddiol i sefydliadau cymunedol eraill sy'n darllen hwn ac sy'n meddwl am eu gwefannau eu hunain.

Beth oedd yn bod ar yr hen wefan?

Wel, roedd yn gwasanaethu'n dda i ni fel presenoldeb ar y we, ond roedd wedi dod yn dipyn o we pry cop dros y blynyddoedd, ac roedd ganddo'r olwg a'r teimlad o fod ychydig 'allan o reolaeth' ac ychydig yn hen ffasiwn.

Nid oedd yn canolbwyntio digon ar ein gwasanaethau presennol, ac nid oedd yn hawdd dod o hyd i wybodaeth glir ar gyfer defnyddwyr presennol a darpar ddefnyddwyr.

Roedd y prif gyfranwyr yn gweld y wefan yn anodd ei golygu, ac roeddent wedi dechrau teimlo’n eithaf rhwystredig gyda'r system yr adeiladwyd arni. Roedd hyn yn golygu na chafodd lawer o gariad, sylw, na'r newyddion a'r wybodaeth ddiweddaraf!

Penderfynodd y bwrdd cyfarwyddwyr y dylem gael “gwedd a naws” newydd i wasanaethu ein defnyddwyr yn well, gyda gwybodaeth haws i'w chael am ein gwasanaethau, ac i roi delwedd fwy proffesiynol i'n sefydliad.

Ac, oherwydd bod y mwyafrif o’n golygyddion yn casáu defnyddio’r dechnoleg y tu ôl i’r hen wefan, roedd yn rhaid i’r wefan newydd fod yn seiliedig ar dechnoleg wahanol!

Amser hefyd ar gyfer enw parth newydd

Roedd rheolwyr ein sefydliad yn gweld ei fod yn dueddol o wneud camgymeriad wrth ddweud wrth rywun am ein gwefan neu gyfeiriadau e-bost. Roedd angen rhywbeth byr a syml!

Fe wnaethon ni chwilio am enw parth byr, hawdd ei gofio, a fyddai'n briodol i ni ei ddefnyddio. Yn ffodus fe wnaethom ddarganfod bod LWCT.ORG.UK ar gael, felly fe wnaethon ni ei gofrestru'n gyflym.

Yr URL ar gyfer y wefan newydd yw https://lwct.org.uk sy'n llawer byrrach na'r hen https://lanwrtydcommunitytransport.org.uk

A, gallem hefyd greu cyfeiriadau e-bost newydd. Fe benderfynon ni mai ein prif gyfeiriad fyddai: swyddfa@lwct.org.uk sy'n haws ei roi allan na office@llanwrtydcommunitytransport.org.uk !

Nid oedd gweithdai bord gron a sesiynau trafod syniadau yn opsiwn

Dyma ni yng nghanol rheolau cyfnod clo Covid-19, Medi 2020. Roedden ni eisiau cyfarfod wyneb yn wyneb a thrafod syniadau, sut roedden ni eisiau cael ein gweld, sut olwg fyddai ar y map safle a pha nodau oedd gennym ni ar gyfer ein gwefan newydd. Ond nid oeddem yn gallu gwneud hyn, er ein diogelwch ein hunain ac oherwydd y cyfyngiadau a osodwyd gan y llywodraeth. Ar yr adeg hon cynhaliwyd cyfarfodydd bwrdd o bell, trwy Zoom, ond nid oeddem yn teimlo y byddai hyn yn dda ar gyfer cyfnewid syniadau ar gyfer y wefan newydd.

Felly, fe wnaethom fabwysiadu dull gwahanol. Fe wnaethom ymchwilio i'r hyn yr oeddem yn ei hoffi o ran “gwedd a theimlad” gwefannau sefydliadau eraill. Gan ganolbwyntio bron yn gyfan gwbl ar sefydliadau trafnidiaeth gymunedol eraill, rhai o'n sir leol ym Mhowys, rhai o bell ac agos ar draws y DU a ledled y byd, casglwyd rhestr o 30 o safleoedd i'r tîm eu hystyried ymhellach wrth iddynt weithio gartref.

Edrychom ar yr hyn yr oeddent yn ei gynnig a beth oeddem yn hoffi o ran golwg ar y gwefannau hyn. Dechreuodd hyn roi sylfaen dda i ni benderfynu ar yr hyn yr oeddem ei eisiau ar gyfer ein gwefan ein hunain

We also collected, as a by-product of this exercise, some ideas of what we might like for a new logo for the organisation, but that’s another story.

Once we’d got our shortlist of 30 down to our top 3 we knew quite a bit about what we wanted our own website to do and what we wanted it to look like.

Final decision, what website builder to use?

An important consideration was that our contributors (editors of the website content) wanted something different from the technology our old website was using at the time.

We went ‘under the bonnet’ and looked at the technology that had been used to build the sites in our top 3 list. It tuned out each had used a different website builder, and none had used the system our old site was built with.

The systems used to make what we considered our top 3 most beautiful websites were, in alphabetical order: –

ionos.co.uk/websites/website-builder
wix.com
wordpress.org

We then looked at the pros, cons, and costs of each of these platforms and the options we had for hosting our website.

We also wanted to have company email addresses for everyone that needed them. With some options every extra email box adds a considerable additional cost — so that is something to watch out for — it’s not only the cost of hosting the website you also need to think about the cost of email hosting!

Among our final considerations were: –

ease of use of the website builder
how good do websites look using it
range of templates available
overall monthly/yearly cost for hosting

Also, we looked at the popularity of the platform especially among other CT organisations as to what we thought would be most suitable for us.

Our old site was built on Joomla CMS (content management system) and it was apparent that whichever of the three alternatives we picked there would be a fair bit of new learning needed.

After some thought, we decided our preferred option was to use WordPress CMS. Among the reasons we decided this are: –

open-source software which is very well-supported
most popular website builder in the world at the time
millions of templates available to help with the site layout
it’s flexible and extendable
many of the other community transport organisations on our shortlist of 30, that we initially reviewed, were using it

The other two website builders are proprietary systems, and we thought this might make it more difficult to migrate away from should there be any problems with the system or the assistance available; or should we decide in the future to develop the website with features that were not supported or would incur additional costs.

We knew that WordPress was available free of charge with the account we already had for the hosting of the domain name, and it had the lowest ongoing cost for us.

Swapping over

In September 2020, we implemented new email addresses (name@lwct.org.uk) while work on the design of the new website went on in the background.

Our job felt like it was made a little easier because we could have old and new websites existing in parallel — each on its own domain name.

So that we could develop the new website “in private” we set it so that it could only be seen by registered and logged-in users, a simple holding page would be seen otherwise (useful features that WordPress offers).

We found a migration tool on WordPress to take content from the database behind the old website and import it into the database of the new website, which saved us a lot of re-typing.

The old website continued to be our public face through to November 2020 when the board of directors agreed that the new site, although not completely finished, was better than the old one, and we were ready to swap over. The old site and domain now redirects all visitors to the new website.

So that’s it for HOW we developed our new site, for a little more information on WHY we changed our website see the previous post: new website launch announcement.

For any questions, for more technical details, or for suggestions, feedback or comments on the new website, please send us a message.