Festival of Social Science 2021 home page
Individual event details
Event search and filter facility
About page
Festival of Social Science mobile views
Visit Live Website - https://2021.festivalofsocialscience.com/
Festival of Social Science 2021 Case Study
The Festival of Social Science is an annual event, hosted by the The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and a collaboration of UK universities. Last year, due to Covid restrictions, the festival took place exclusively online for the first time. We were delighted to be comissioned to design and build the original FoSS website in 2020 and the updated, bigger, better version in 2021.
In 2021 the festival is held both virtually and in person for the entire month of November, with over 300 individual events facilitiated by 34 UK universities. This much bigger undertaking than before was eased by our previous experience of managing and creating the online project the previous year, with a signifcant part of the process being in the planning and organisation of data. This resulted in a smooth process and the website being live in time for the launch date and with all administrators trained and supported.
The ESRC branding was incorporated with a fresh new design and layout and with illustrations created by our colleague Lydia at Thoughts Make Things.
The website utilises a sophisticated filtering system to ensure attendees can search for and book talks, workshops and performances on topics of interest, in various formats and suitable for different audiences, as well as other criteria. The topics include business and finance, environment, health, politics and technology and much, much more. Visitors interested in events hosted by specific partners or in a UK region can search that way too.
Website sections also inlcude details of the partner organisations involved and information about the festival itself.
The 2020 FoSS website is archived and still available to view online.
Training and written guidance on how to use the website was provided to all partner organisations and an ongoing support service is also in place. The website is hosted of course at our very own Green Hosting.
Here are some words from the Festival of Social Science Manager:
“As an annual national festival with 34 partner organisations the website is critical to the successful promotion and delivery of the Festival.
From the start we really appreciated the collaborative approach to this project and Make Hay immediately became part of the core Festival team.
Jez was very open to our input into the design and functionality for the website as well as advising and guiding us to what would best achieve our objectives.
Jez was also very responsive throughout, building on the previous website design and incorporating our new requirements. He was always available to us and responded very quickly to requests for support and developments. The design and functionality evolved as we progressed and it was refreshing that we could keep developing and enhancing website features and functionality – we weren’t restricted to our original outline or the original proposal from Jez. As a result the process was a very productive one and the website is something we are all really pleased with, both the look and feel and the functionality provided.
We were also able to open up access to the website content management system to all of our partners, enhancing the service we provide to our partners.
This made the process of keeping the content up-to-date really efficient and they found it very intuitive and user-friendly and really appreciated the ability to edit their own content.
The website was a great success thanks to Jez and his team. We really valued the collaborative approach and the willingness to continually develop the site and we cannot fault the level of service provided which was excellent.”
