Continuous design and development
for the leading UK cycling body

Introduction

For a number of years, I've worked alongside the team at Loft Digital to improve, maintain and enhance the Bicycle Association website. It was originally built by Loft's founder, Nick Nettleton, but after he switched into a management role and the years passed, other developers such as myself were tasked with taking care of it and adding new features.

The site is built on Wordpress, which means a knowledge of PHP, plugin & CMS development were essential skills required for the job, as well as a keen eye for design. Luckily, those are things I have plenty of experience in!

Solution

I worked on a number of key challenges that the team at Bicycle Association put to us over the years. One such example was providing users with a clear, intuitive dashboard that would allow them to access and manage their accounts & user benefits easily. To address this challenge, I worked closely with their team to redesign the user dashboard, incorporating new features and a more modern, user-friendly design.

In addition to the user dashboard redesign, I was also responsible for designing and developing a number of reusable blocks for a new data dashboard page - a page that underpinned a core direction change within the business. The project involved writing custom PHP code to integrate the website with various external data sources, as well as designing and implementing a range of data visualisation tools to help users make sense of the complex information at their disposal.

These are just a few examples of some specific tasks that come to mind. Beyond those, I also played a general role in developing various new pages, fixing bugs, and responding quickly to requests from the Bicycle Association team for technical help. Throughout this process, I relied heavily on my knowledge of PHP, plugin & Wordpress development, as well as my attention to detail - I'm very nit-picky about things being even a pixel out... it drives me mad, and I won't allow it!

Outcome

Overall, our job as the caretakers of the Bicycle Association website was focused on providing a better user experience, improving website functionality, and helping the organisation achieve various targets through digital implementation.

Thanks to the close collaboration between myself, the Loft Digital team, and the Bicycle Association, I think we absolutely achieved those goals. Every challenge posed was overcome with a seemless solution that met - and often exceeded - expectations, resulting in a website that was better equipped to serve the users.