The IDeA Knowledge website is a free information resource run by the Improvement and Development Agency. Widely used and valued by local government, the site contained thousands of pages of best practice examples and information. But because the content was badly organised, that valuable information was proving difficult to find.

The IDeA was also missing a trick because the site didn't promote their other products and services - these were all held on a separate corporate website. Having previously worked with the IDeA on the development of their visual identity, they now asked us to help them combine their two existing websites into a single, coherent access point. We used a series of working meetings and interviews to find out exactly what the IDeA wanted to achieve with the new site and to investigate what information their target audiences wanted, needed and were likely to be interested in.

The result was an information architecture that structured information around terminology and structures that were recognisable and intuitive to their local government audiences, whilst ensuring that there was plenty of opportunity for cross promotion of IDeA services throughout. We then created an updated, uncluttered and attractive design style and built fully accessible HTML templates for integration with the existing site content management system.

Since launch the site has proved hugely successful and it recently received a commendation in the Good Communication Awards 2005.

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