So the Times Online redesign went live last week.

It was an exciting project to work on, I was based in Canary Wharf working with 2 other developers, 4 Information Architects, 3 Designers, a Content Management team, and countless management types.

I was involved at a early stage in the project life cycle in August 2006. My role was to take the illustrator designs and code them into templates showing the individual modules for each element in the design. Of course, validating and browser testing went along side this. And each module was given a timescale score depending on its complexity.

I was with the team for a month during which time I completed the front end build for all the main sections of the site: news, sport, fashion, motoring.. The job became quicker once the initial elements were built as they could be reused in other sections of the sites pages.

It was a colossal project brief, redesigning any news portal, the site carrying content from two papers, each with a legacy of millions of stories. Once the templates were tested, approved the pages went into a content management system in India. This was done whilst the UK team were out of the office in the evening.

Probably the most interesting part of the project was the agile development of the site, the designers and developers worked side by side, the HTML designs were approved at the same stime a. This was done for the staff at News International to get a ‘feel’ for the content, rather than a flat image, which is remiscent of wireframe designs.

Each iteration was like a miniature software project of its own, and included all of the tasks necessary to release the mini-increment of new functionality: planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation.

I like the use of space in the new site, and I do find it easy to read. However, there have been a few complaints about load times and use of flash videos and dynamic banners. However, I’m sure these initial problems will be ironed out quickly by the current team at Sapient.
This work was part of the reason why I was awarded freelancer of the year last week. As I contributed to the working procedures of the project, saving costs and time during my time as well as for the remainder of the development/build for the site.

I was also able to help my freelance colleagues to learn new techniques and tips for testing, for example using the excellent firefox extensions and multiple platform testing.

Further reading: Two colleagues who I worked with at Sapient are interviewed on the new site, and give their answers on why they chose the design, in particular lime green > Read the article.

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