Homebuilding & Renovating Magazine

Homebuilding & Renovating magazine is the UK’s best-selling title for anyone interested in creating their dream home through self-build, renovation or conversion. The previous website had been in place for a number of years;  functionally and from a design perspective was quite dated.

The Challenge

The challenge was to create an online environment that was seen by the audience as the ‘first port of call’ for anyone interested in self-build, renovation or conversion. The site needed to engage the audience and encourage user generated content. The online offering also had to reflect the strong design element that comes through in the printed product.

Delivering a solution

Stage 1 – Developing the strategy

Prior to the new site build commencing, SiftGroups led the key stakeholders at Ascent through a series of strategic planning workshops designed to restructure and align the new site to meet its target audience’s expectations.

It was essential to develop a planning and implementation strategy that would take into account the demands and wishes of the audience without incurring the substantial costs associated with holding focus groups. Our “Persona Profiling” process allowed the existing comprehensive knowledge held within the editorial, sales and management team from Ascent to create a series of “paper people” who would represent the wider audience throughout the design and build process. These would give a reliable data that could inform the planning process ensuring that resulting site is designed from a user perspective and not an organisational outlook.

Stage 2 – Design & Build

Using this unique and ‘audience-centric’ approach meant the finished site incorporated a look and feel that allows website visitors to find content more easily, using intuitive and user-friendly navigation.

The flexibility of the Sift Unity platform was able to incorporate an intricate design concept that reflects the strong design element in the print publication.

The main site includes an extensive integrated directory together with community features such as forums, blogs and ‘ask the expert’. These features are designed to engage and support the highly motivated sector of people who embark on complex self-build and renovation projects each year.

What does the client think?

“SiftGroups have proved to be much more than just a web development company; through their series of workshops we have been able to effectively focus our thinking and draw out all of our requirements. The experience has been a very productive one and has helped us to translate this information into a community-focused and commercially viable replacement for our existing Homebuilding.co.uk website.”.

Gill Dawson, Web Services Director, Ascent Publishing