Raidio Failte Website Redesign
Upon first seeing the Raidió Fáilte website, it was obvious why they were wanting a complete redesign of how the website looked and how it functioned. Among the bugs, broken links, missing files, bad coding and poorly implemented audio streaming, what stood out most was the lack of user experience. The utilization of good UX is quintessential to any design, pertaining not only to websites, but to all mediums which require a person to interact with.
User experience (or the lack there of in this case) was definitively a big problem with the old website, another problem just as extensive existed, the folks at Raidió Fáilte were unable to access the website in any capacity, were powerless when it came to adding new content or even editing content already present on the site. This resulted in data becoming outdated, misrepresenting the current state of Raidió Fáilte and the good people who work there, it was imperative then, that we develop the new website with creating great user experience and features that are easily managed and manipulated by the staff at Raidió Fáilte as the highest priorities.
New and Improved Online Streaming
- Basic Functionality
The previous Radio Player lacked any of the basic functionality that an online audio streaming service should have, when you visited the old website, the radio player immediately began playing, there was no way to switch it off, there was no way to
turn the volume up or down through the website, when you choose to visit another page on the website, the player would cut off and
then restart itself, all of these issues scream out a lack of user experience and all these issues were tackled head on.
With the new Raidio Failte live player, we introduced all the basic functions we thought a live broadcast player should have, this included its own separate page from the rest of the website, so you could browse and listen at the same time without and interference.
Using a HTML5 player, we were able to bypass the use of any Flash, thus making it compatible with, not only computers without flash installed, but smartphones and tablets as well. We also built in the ability to pause the live player and alter the volume using the web players own UI.
- Radio Player Accessibility
As the name suggests, Raidio Failte is a Radio Station, as such, the audio streaming feature is surely the most important one. Sadly, the old website had included flash in the calling and loading of the radio station. As flash isn’t supported by certain smartphones/tablets, a considerable number of potential listeners were surely lost. To tie in with our goal for better user experience, we wanted to allow all users, regardless of where or how you visit the website, incontrovertible access to the radio player.
- Now Playing Feature
We have also added a feature that shows who is currently broadcasting live on the radio player, although this seems minimal in comparison to some of the other features, we feel that every effort to improve the user experience is effort well spent.
Improved Accessibly
Using WordPress as the Content Management System for the website, allowed us to give the crew at Raidio Failte all the access to add and change content that they wanted. For anyone who doesn’t know what WordPress is, it is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plug-in architecture and an extremely easy to use UI, which is great for those who are not code savvy.
With many more features and improvements, why not take a few minutes to visit the newly redesigned Raidió Fáilte website and let us know what you think!