The Charles Dickens Museum in London, a prominent cultural institution preserving the world's most extensive Dickens collection, houses over 100,000 items, including manuscripts, rare editions, personal artifacts, paintings, and various visual materials. As part of my collaboration with Cog Design, I was responsible for converting their creative design into a responsive, user-friendly website employing HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript to implement a flexible grid layout that adapts to multiple screen sizes.

To empower the Dickens Museum team with maximum control over managing events, updating content, and maintaining the website, we opted for WordPress as our content management system (CMS). This decision facilitated seamless integration of custom plugins and themes tailored to the Museum's specific needs.

Planning the Project

A thorough planning process, including wireframing and prototyping, enabled us to map out the sitemap and identify all critical components and pages required for the website build. This blueprint helped ensure a cohesive user journey and an intuitive information architecture.

Website Development

During development, I employed responsive web design principles and techniques, such as media queries and fluid grids, to optimize content presentation on mobile devices and guarantee a consistent user experience across various environments.

I crafted custom JavaScript functions to enrich site interactivity and functionality. This approach allowed for an enhanced experience for users with up-to-date web browsers while maintaining accessibility for those using older versions.

To optimize website performance, I implemented various best practices, including minification of CSS and JavaScript files, image optimization, and leveraging browser caching.

User Guide

A hallmark of our client-centric approach is providing a comprehensive user guide for each project. This guide encompasses the basics of using the WordPress CMS, adding and editing content, managing events, and optimizing SEO. It serves as a valuable resource for our clients to maximize the potential of their new website.

Check it out at www.dickensmuseum.com