Creative Website Design Company

The Brief

Officially opened in July 2007, the Australian Synchrotron is the largest stand-alone piece of scientific infrastructure in the southern hemisphere.

Lava beat some of Australia’s best web firms to deliver an entirely new online presence for the Australian Synchrotron. The project required a highly polished site, with extensive information for a worldwide audience ranging from scientists, to the media, and government representatives. The site needed to act as both a first introduction, as well as an ongoing information source including timetables, booking forms, and reporting the outcomes of research undertaken.

An extensive CMS solution was required, which would enable the Australian Synchrotron staff to self manage designated areas of the site. The CMS required different login levels, so the authoring and publishing roles can be delegated to different staff, along with a thorough proofing process to ensure integrity of content before it is loaded live. Lava’s role involved the migration of old content from the old website to the new, and providing CMS training and documentation.

Lava’s Solution

The site design styling is professional, and highly polished with a slight scientific feel. The Synchrotron ‘spider’ logo was reversed, enabling the use of a mainly charcoal and blue palette. There is a feature photo at the top of each section tailored to suit the content presented within. The photo selection process was a combined Lava and Synchrotron activity. Photos need careful selection to ensure they are both relevant and attractive.

A challenge of the project was the sheer extensiveness of the site content. To help users navigate, Lava has implemented a horizontal main menu system, with subsections presented in a tiered, drop-down format. Once a user is within their selected main section, the menu is replicated vertically on the left of screen. This provides a strong sense of orientation, and saves time.

To organize the site structure mapping, Lava used the online tool called JumpChart. We auto-populated this tool by replicating the menu structure from the project brief, then gave the client login access and steering to help refine it. JumpChart acted as the main repository for the client to collate the content, images and documents, which were ultimately manually transferred into the new site by Lava’s staff via the CMS (while watching a lot of cricket on TV!).

The site has some terrific features including the interactive Flash area on the Homepage, which is used to highlight key topics. Other features include; an Image Gallery, extensive News & Event listings, and the ability for scientists to apply online for Beamtime via a form, which is then reviewed via the CMS.
The back-end CMS is extensive, enabling editing of all site content, including custom sections such as the Image Gallery. It also includes; a form builder, login levels enabling content delegation, an approval process, and menu editing. Lava’s team delivered face-to-face staff CMS training, along with an instruction manual.

The Lava team is extremely proud of the solution provide to the Australian Synchrotron. It was a thrill to get an insight into such an incredible facility, at the cutting edge of its industry. A huge thanks goes to the Synchrotron team for their efforts, persistence and diligence. This project required very effective collaboration, and their willingness helped us achieve a terrific end solution.

Testimonial

Dear Brett & Stuart,

On behalf of the team here at Synchrotron we would like to thank you and your team for all the hard work you did on our website.

The website is professional, the menus intuitive, visually attractive and represents our organisation well.

Kind regards,

Victoria Moores
Contracts & Procurement
Australian Synchrotron