IHBC launches new ‘mobile-first’ website

IHBC Website Home PageThe Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) has just launched its new ‘mobile first’ website, to ease access to its 30,000 or so web pages, designed especially to work across both mobile and desktop users, and while the look is entirely different the links remain much the same.

IHBC Communications Secretary Charles Strang said: ‘It is a real pleasure to see all this hard work by our staff and IT consultants coming to fruition in this entirely new-looking website.  No doubt it will take a little time for some members to get used to, but we know that this new format will make it much easier to access our familiar web-based resources while on the move – such as our NewsBlogs; Jobs etc.; Join and Branches.’

‘And as the panels can be changed, the layout can be used to highlight new resources to users, such as our recent online listing of some of the IHBC’s accredited members.’

‘But in the end it is the new mobile facility that is central to these changes.  That sort of flexibility is increasingly important to the vast majority of our current and coming members, whether young or old’.

IHBC Director Sean O’Reilly said: ‘This new site, with its ‘mobile-first’ design and function, will ensure that our members get the most helpful online service possible.  The new-look home page and links offer users a much more flexible route into our online resources, one of our key public services as a charity.’

‘The new design allows for more efficient information management across our online information resources, such as the NewsBlogs.  So it will also save on administration time, and help keep our member fees down.  Last but not least, it also eases the routes into our rapidly expanding social media operations, with twitter, Linkedin and even facebook only a ‘press’ away!  Do try it out!’

‘No doubt there will need to be some settling-in time though.  So if there are any pages you can’t access as easily as you’d wish, just let us know by emailing Joanna at contact@ihbc.org.uk and we’ll see what we can do.’

‘It’s worth noting too that the menus and lists from our old home page are continued across to the new site, with some of the redundant overlapping ironed out.  So there should be a lot of familiar territory once you get to the menu listing at the top of the page.’

‘However, in cleaning up the display of the home page, we know we have had to lose some information – such as the lists of bodies of which we are members.  Given the benefits of clarity and simplicity in the new design, we think we’ve achieved a good balance between old and new, as you’d expect in any good conservation exercise, which I’m sure many of our members will appreciate’.

The new site can be reached using our current website address: www.ihbc.org.uk

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