1. • Fully responsive mobile-first site
• Designed to engage 16 and 17 year olds voting for the
first time in the Scottish Referendum
• Provides a platform where no question is to big, small
or “stupid” to ask about the referendum
• BBC News stories and features
• Quiz questions pushed out daily over social media
• Ask your own question about the referendum

2. How did the project come
about?
• Sept 2013
– BBC Connected Studio workshop in Glasgow
– How to engage 16-17 year olds voting for the first time?
– 1 day, 20+ teams, 2 minute pitch
• Nov 2013
– Build phase
– Refine concept
– Build a working prototype
– 2 days, 4 teams, 10 minute pitch
• Feb 2014
– Proposal meeting with BBC in London
• Mar 2014
– Interface build
• May 2014
– Site launched

3. What part did I play?
• Connected Studio
– Ideas generation
– Technical expertise and recommendations
• Build studio
– Building a working prototype from previous
wireframes
– Updating design on the fly as new assets were
created
• Proposal meeting
– Listening to the client’s requirements and advising
on the best course of action to develop the site

4. What part did I play?
• Project build
– Unavailable for the build due to other priorities
– Contractor hired to complete the work
– Provided support and direction to contractor,
with regular check ups to ensure they were
managing their workload effectively
– Functionality that the contractor needed
assistance with was developed outside of
working hours
– Liaising with technical team at BBC wherever
necessary to ensure a smooth setup on their
systems

5. Our approach
• Site built using WordPress as a CMS
• Question functionality to be added via a
custom plugin
• Front-end built using Grunt, LESS, jQuery and
QUnit
• Caching and load balancing required to cater
for large volumes of traffic expected
• Why?
– WordPress flexible enough for our needs
– Technologies that we were already familiar with
– Experience of building custom plugins for
WordPress
– Content editors already familiar with WP admin
pages

6. Testing
JavaScript code was tested using
QUnit
User testing carried out by PM and
client

7. Project hurdles
• BBC insistent that we use Tumblr
– Did not want to host the site themselves
– “That’s what young people are using”
• We persuaded them that:
– Target audience didn’t really use Tumblr
– WordPress was a better CMS option
– Hosting could be provided on Amazon web
server

8. Project hurdles
• Contractor unavailable shortly before go live
– Contractor had completed his allocated time
– Last minute amends required before Radio 1
academy event
• Other developers approached to work
overtime
– Other developers brought on to work overtime
– Able to get them up to speed quickly
– Liaising with PM to ensure everyone knew what
was expected of them

9. What next?
“Ask” Referend-erm? sister site created
for Radio 1 Academy event

10. What next?
Promoted across BBC online channels

11. What next?
Further BBC work including projects
for…

12. What next?
Ideas refined for future projects

13. Thank you for listening
Questions?