Youth Theatre Arts Scotland: our AmbITion case study

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Our Mission

To transform lives through youth theatre by providing inspiring participatory opportunities for young people and by connecting, supporting and training the professionals who work with them.

Why did we apply for the Make:IT:Happen fund?

In line with a new strategic plan, we wanted to widen our appeal and reach by developing our digital capacity.

We wanted to make the youth theatre sector more accessible and provide thought leadership for the individuals and organisations working within it. A key part of this aim was to create a more dynamic website.

Project Aim

YTAS aims to be the go-to organisation in Scotland, and a leading authority in the UK and around the world, for professionals who use drama and theatre in their work with young people.

It is hoped that a new online presence could mirror that, with a richer website which is easier to navigate and provides a welcoming and informative entry point for all those with an interest in youth theatre arts.

What we did

We worked with consultant Sarah Gee to review our aspirations and outline how the new digital resource might be structured.

An online survey was built to ask our membership about their potential use of this new digital platform. Findings from the survey were added into the project brief presented to the web agencies who tendered.

DiscoveriesCurrent website was cluttered, not designed.Content hidden below layers of navigation.The new site to be ‘richer’ and constantly changing.Pages need to support video, audio and downloads.Create directories for membership.New site to be tablet/mobile enabled.More visually-appealing.Ability to join/renew membership/donate online.Encourage a crossover between related events, opportunities, groups and freelancers.

Previous website: single page for listing freelance members

What we did next

We wrote a project brief based on the consultancy document.We put a call out for expressions of interest from web agencies.We received nine responses.We invited five to tender.All were provided with findings from the online survey.We selected Infinite Eye as our supplier.

What changed along the way?

Our project aspirations grew: from an online members network designed to deliver training and share resources (i.e. a blog, forum and opportunities bulletin board) to a website with an automatically changing homepage, searchable directories of members, news and performance listings along with Amazon-style functionality to encourage visits to related content.

We narrowed the primary audience down to our members based in Scotland.

What changed along the way?

The functionality of two sections of the site were reduced/put on hold to allow the site to be built on budget

“Being up-front about the budget early on in the process also helped as it allowed us to work with you to prioritise and deliver the most important features. “ Infinite Eye

We had many discussions about enabling user comments to encourage debate amongst members. Due to limited staff resources ,we did not build this function into the new site.

The new website: Home

Fully responsive web design (tablet/phone).Page updates based on site content.Twitter feed.

The new website: Groups, organisations and freelance directory

Listing and individual profile pages.Searchable.Filterable.Google Maps integration.

The new website: Event template

Fields for editors make the page easy to update.Eventbrite integration.Twitter hashtag feed.Custom YouTube gallery. Forms and PayPal integration.

Learning Points

Plan in as much time as possible if your staff are contributing content to your website.

Assume that you will need additional help to do things like data entry for a new site if you have any form of directory function.

Staffing changes can happen at your company and your supplier: build in extra contingency time.

Additional successful elements

We hosted an unpaid placement for an undergraduate student to become our Digital Project Assistant. He worked with our Marketing Manager on the site and his tasks included photography/filming, video/image editing, writing and publishing webpage content.

“It was great that you had a clear idea of your need based on real user feedback from the market research phase, that was a great help when defining the technical project requirements.” Infinite Eye

What happens next?

Site launches on 7 November 2014 at our Sector Symposium event in Edinburgh.Email newsletter template and social media profile updates.Encouraging the membership to complete /update their directory profiles.Developments to online ticketing.Regular tweets/posts flagging up new opportunities on the site.Ongoing soliciting/development of new content.

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www.ytas.org.uk

facebook.com/YTArtsScottwitter.com/YTArtsScot