London Borough of Culture 2019

UX/UI and front-end development for Waltham Forest’s London Borough of Culture programme, creating a distinctive digital presence for a major year-long programme of cultural events and activities.

Introduction

Waltham Forest became the first London Borough of Culture, creating a year-long programme designed to celebrate the creativity, communities and cultural life of the borough.

As part of my wider work with the London Borough of Waltham Forest, I worked on the digital presence supporting the programme, combining UX/UI and front-end development to help turn its strong visual identity into an engaging and practical online experience. The project needed to showcase a diverse programme of events and activities while making it straightforward for residents and visitors to discover what was happening and become involved.

Creating a Digital Home for the Programme

The London Borough of Culture programme brought together a wide range of events, performances, exhibitions and community activities. Its digital presence therefore needed to do more than promote the initiative: it had to help people discover what was happening and encourage them to participate.

The interface needed to accommodate varied content while maintaining the distinctive visual identity created for the programme. Clear navigation and content structure were particularly important in helping residents and visitors explore the activities available to them.

Combining Creative Design with Practical Delivery

My involvement combined UX/UI and front-end development, translating the programme’s strong creative direction into a working digital experience.

As with many content-rich websites, the challenge was to retain the visual impact of the design while ensuring that information remained accessible and straightforward to navigate. The result needed to support both the identity of a major cultural initiative and the practical needs of people looking for events and information.

Part of a Much Wider Digital Programme

London Borough of Culture was one of around 15 websites and digital projects I worked on during an extended engagement with the London Borough of Waltham Forest. These projects supported very different council services, initiatives and audiences, requiring the approach to each site to reflect its particular objectives while working within the wider council environment.

That breadth of work provided valuable experience of delivering multiple digital projects within a single organisation and adapting UX/UI and development approaches to very different user and business needs.

Read the Full Project Story

This article provides a short introduction to my work on the London Borough of Culture project. For more information about the project, my role and the wider professional context, read the full London Borough of Culture project page on Mike-Speight.co.uk.