Site redesign

UPDATE 25 October 2006: The key stages of Sapling's redesign are now complete.

Since Sapling's last major redesign at the end of 2003, the site has continued to grow.

It now features more than 1,000 reviewed website links and hundreds of pages of content, including our rapidly expanding Forums. Visitor numbers have also continued to rise, with the site now receiving over 120,000 page views a month, compared to 40,000 at the end of 2003.

As any site develops and expands, its interface and technology must also evolve in order to accommodate this change - first by the odd tweak here and there, and occasionally with a more radical overhaul.

As a result, we will be making the following important changes:

• Changing our web host, and promoting http://www.sapling.info/ as the site's primary address;
• Introducing a new logo based around the brand 'Sapling.info';
• Reorganising the content of Sapling's subject Gateways and spreading it across more pages in order to reduce loading times;
• Promoting the crossover of relevant content between Sapling and its two sister sites, the Home Interiors Directory and the Garden & Landscape Directory;
• Closing the Sapling Campaigns section, and instead giving greater prominence to campaigns within an improved Sapling Newsletter section;
• Enhancing and promoting the Sapling Forums.
• Incorporating the Housing Resource Guide (housinguk.org) into Sapling.

The rest of this page explains these changes in more detail.

Change of web host

As the site grows, it inevitably uses up more space. In order to obtain the additional webspace that we need, Sapling will be changing its web host in April. This will result in a brief period - expected to be a day at most - where the site is unavailable at http://www.sapling.org.uk/. However, you will be able to access the site as usual at http://www.sapling.info/ and http://www.sapling.org/ during this period.
UPDATE 3 May 2006: The change of web host has now taken place. You should already notice a significant reduction in page loading time as a result of the new host.

Once the transfer is complete, you will be able to use any of the web addresses interchangeably - so, for example, typing in any of http://www.sapling.org.uk/architecture/, http://www.sapling.info/architecture/ or http://www.sapling.org/architecture/ will take you directly to the Architecture Gateway. This same principle will apply to all other pages in the site, and the content that you see will be identical whichever address you use.
UPDATE 3 May 2006: This function is now operational.

However, we will be taking advantage of the hosting change to promote http://www.sapling.info/ as the site's principal web address. When Sapling first launched, the .info domains were not available, so going for a .org.uk seemed the best option at the time. Seven years on, it now makes sense to use the web address that best conveys Sapling's function as "a global gateway for information". That's why from now on we will be known as Sapling.info - The Architecture, Planning & Landscape Information Gateway.

We're still proud to be based in the UK, but using a domain that is not country-specific will also allow Sapling to enhance its appeal to international users, and in turn improve its coverage of sites and events based outside the UK.

New logo

A change of name requires a change of logo, and you can see our new logo proudly displayed on the Sapling home page. It retains the familiar green and pink tree icon that we've used since 2001, but uses a crisp new font (Sharnay Extra Bold, if you're interested) for the text 'Sapling.info' and 'The Architecture, Planning & Landscape Information Gateway'. We think it gives Sapling a much bolder visual identity, and hope that you like it as much as we do. The new logo will be introduced throughout the site as pages are updated, and we hope to have this completed by June.
UPDATE 21 August 2006: The new logo is now present in all locations throughout the site.

Alongside, we have changed the shade of green used for the background of all our Gateway pages - this picks out the colour of the new logo, and also helps to give the pages a bolder and less wishy-washy appearance. It's the end of an era in a way - as our History page shows, the previous more minty shade of green had lasted through quite a lot of Sapling's incarnations!

A revised logo also has implications for the many sites linking to Sapling, including those displaying our 'Site of the Month' and 'Commended' graphics. We have now uploaded new graphics, and would encourage anyone linking to us to replace their existing graphics with these new (and improved!) ones.
UPDATE 7 June 2006: All graphics have been updated, and a number of extra ones provided.

Gateways

We think that the most important feature of any site is its content, with the purpose of any interface being to make this content as attractive and accessible as possible. With 1,000 reviewed website links now featured in our twelve separate gateways, including a growing number of businesses, some pages have grown very large. This inevitably has a negative effect on the time it takes them to load, as well as increasing the amount of vertical scrolling that is necessary.

A major part of the redesign therefore involves spreading Sapling's content over a larger number of pages. Previously, the top tier of each Gateway has featured a contents page listing all the reviewed links within it; a second tier has then included separate pages covering Organisations, Resources, Businesses and so on. It is these second tier pages that have started to become prohibitively large.

As a result, it is our intention to introduce a third tier, spreading what is currently the second tier content over multiple pages rather than just one. Thus, what have previously been sections within a page - for example 'Links and Gateways' or 'News, Information and Networks' - will each now become a page in its own right.

These smaller pages will be much faster to load, and will also make it easier to find information within any given page, particularly for anyone arriving directly at that page via a search engine. They will also give Sapling more capacity and flexibility to expand further in the future.

At the same time, increasing the number of pages makes it more necessary than ever to ensure clear and intuitive navigation throughout the site. As well as enhancing Sapling's search functions (see below), we therefore intend to promote improved signposting of related content, with the addition of 'See also...' links on every Gateway page.

Alongside, we will be taking advantage of this opportunity to reassess the choice of sections and the distribution of sites within them, particularly with a view to promoting greater consistency between all the Gateways and organising content more logically. It is unlikely that any given site will move from one Gateway to another, but the specific pages on which it is listed may well change.

Currently, each Gateway includes some or all of the following pages:

• Businesses
• Campaigns
• Courses
• Organisations
• Research
• Resources

This will be replaced by a new structure:

• Education (essentially a renamed 'Courses' section, including Higher Education, Training)
• Organisations (unchanged, other than losing some content to 'Places')
• Places (a new section including Campaigns, Case Studies, Places to Visit, Projects and Developments)
• Portfolios (including personal and portfolio sites that currently sit awkwardly in the 'Businesses' section)
• Products (including existing content from 'Businesses')
• Research (unchanged)
• Resources (unchanged, other than losing some content to 'Places')
• Services (including existing content from 'Businesses')

As part of this reorganisation, it will also now be possible to list any given site under more than one relevant page within the same Gateway. For instance, if a University department site is related to both 'Education' and 'Research' in Architecture, it will now be possible to list it in both locations, rather than having to choose one or the other. This means that many sites will now benefit by being linked to from multiple locations within Sapling.

Reorganising this content will inevitably take some time, given that it requires the recategorisation of many of Sapling's reviews. This process will be undertaken as reviews are updated, and we hope that it will be completed by the end of 2006. The Books, Events and News pages within each Gateway will not be affected by these changes.

Alongside, we will be taking the opportunity to introduce a new Urban Design Gateway, as well as improving the appearance and functionality of our search tools.
UPDATE 25 October 2006: The reorganisation of Sapling's Gateways is now complete. An improved search tool has also been launched, accessible via the 'more searches' link in the pink search panel of every page.

Sapling's City Gateways have proved successful since first being launched in 2004, and they will continue to feature reviewed links, events and books relevant to specific UK cities. The reorganisation of Sapling will be used as an opportunity to add some additional City Gateways, as well as developing new content and improving the signposting of them throughout the rest of the site.
UPDATE 6 September 2006: The 20 existing UK City Gateways have been redesigned and improved, and a further 11 new ones have been added. We have also launched a City Gateway for Dublin, and have plans to cover Paris and Barcelona in due course.

Crossover of content with Sapling's sister sites

The hosting change will also allow us to promote greater crossover of content between Sapling and its two sister sites - the Home Interiors Directory and the Garden & Landscape Directory. Where Sapling's focus is the academic and practitioner communities, the HID and GLD are aimed at the general public. Both sites already displaying relevant reviews from Sapling on their links pages (drawing from our Interior Design and Landscape Gateways respectively), as well as using content from the Sapling Bookstore. In turn, the 'See also...' section of each Sapling Gateway page will now be able to link to related content in the HID or GLD - so, for example, someone visiting the Kitchens & Bathrooms page of the Interior Design Gateway can also be pointed towards the Kitchen Units and Bathroom Suites pages of the Home Interiors Directory.UPDATE 6 September 2006: The first 'See also...' links have now been added; these will be rolled out across all Gateways by the end of 2006.

Campaigns and Sapling.info Newsletter

Sapling's Campaigns section was launched back in 2000 to promote the National Trust's Save Tyntesfield campaign, enlarged in 2002 with coverage of the Save Newcastle's Paramount Theatre campaign. The Campaigns section has also linked to relevant content in the Sapling Update newsletter.

Unfortunately, the Campaigns section requires a level of ongoing maintenance that has been difficult to sustain with Sapling's resources. There is also an issue of how well the campaigns material sits with Sapling's other content, given the site's core focus as a gateway to information elsewhere. As a result, the Campaigns section will be closed as part of the current site reorganisation.

The Tyntesfield pages will be deleted, with the Newcastle Paramount content moving to a dedicated home (outside Sapling's responsibility) at http://www.newcastleparamount.org.uk/. Sapling will continue to host the Newcastle Paramount Forum at http://www.sapling.info/paramountforum/.

To compensate, the Sapling Newsletter (a rebadged Sapling Update) will become the primary source of up-to-date campaigns-related information, with the existing Newsletter archive being restructured and made searchable.
UPDATE 6 September 2006: The Save Newcastle's Paramount Theatre site has now been moved to newcastleparamount.org.uk. The new Sapling Newsletter pages have now been created, including a new search function.

Sapling Forums

The Sapling Forums have already undergone significant changes in recent months, with the addition of user registration, moderation of postings by unregistered users, and the ability to be notified of replies to your message.

Prior to that, we successfully split the old Forum into three, covering Discussion, Jobs and Products & Services. The Jobs Forum has been particularly successful, attracting a very high level of usage.

One of the major constraints preventing further development of the Forums has been Sapling's limited webspace, and this will be alleviated by our change of web host. Alongside, we will continue to make improvements to the Forums interface, as well as promoting the Forums more prominently throughout the site.
UPDATE 7 June 2006: The improvement to the Forums interface has been completed, with more prominent links created from other parts of the site.

Housing Resource Guide

Started in 1996 by Matthew Guy and Ron Strong, the Housing Resource Guide (housinguk.org) is now in the process of being incorporated into Sapling.

Over the coming weeks, the 250+ Housing Resource Guide entries will be rated and reviewed before being transferred to Sapling's database. The addition of these new entries will greatly enhance Sapling's coverage of housing-related sites, and will increase the total number of Sapling reviews by over 25% to more than 1,100.

Awarded our Site of the Month accolade in September 2001, Sapling has always considered the Housing Resource Guide to be one of the best sites of its kind. We are therefore very pleased that the Housing Resource Guide will now continue to be developed as part of Sapling, building on Matthew and Ron's sterling work over the last ten years.
UPDATE 6 July 2006: The HRG entries are in the process of being transferred and updated within our reorganised Housing Gateway. See the Housing Gateway for a more detailed progress update.

Bear with us!

These are the main changes that are being carried out to the site, and by phasing them over a period of months we hope to carry them out with as little disruption as possible. We hope that all the changes and improvements listed here will be complete by the end of 2006.

Some pages will inevitably move, but we will make sure that any old addresses always redirect to the new location - we known from experience that there's nothing more infuriating than a website that brings up '404' error pages everywhere you turn. As far as the site's interface is concerned, the changes are evolutionary rather revolutionary, so you shouldn't need to relearn how you move around the site.

Feedback

As always, we welcome your feedback about these changes or any other aspect of Sapling - just drop us a line via the contact page.

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