The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are a government agency who fund research and training in social and economic issues. Their website ESRC Society Today is a truly mammoth site with over 50,000 unique pages and receiving 6 million page views a month. Sometimes it can be a little difficult for users to find their way around.

ESRC's solution is to develop 'mini-sites' - a site within a site. I was asked to develop a mini-site for their Communications Toolkit - a 160-page resource advising how researchers should communicate their work effectively to achieve maximum impact.

It was essential the mini-site was visually compatible with ESRC's existing website and corporate identity. The was achieved by designing a signpost header graphic which uses the same colour palette and a similar visual style to the site's over-arching header graphic.

The 160 pages of content were organised into a consistent and clear navigational structure, using a top navigation menu and a two-tier side navigation bar. This simplifies the how the user browses the toolkit and provides clear signposting as to where the user is at any time.

Edit: The toolkit has now been replaced with the Impact Toolkit.