JJB Recruitment

The redesign of JJB’s Job Recruitment website was completed in the autumn of 2005. It was my first public facing project for JJB Sports and it is a project I am still very proud of. It was a website powered by a bespoke content management system designed and built exclusively by me.

I used my initiative to create this site, nobody explicitly requested it, but I recongised the existing recruitment site was not performing well in any aspect. So when I had spare time, I spent it making this site - and it certainly paid off.

Administrators needed to be able to add/edit jobs quickly and easily and I provided a solution for them that allowed them to do just that. This website/CMS made their lives easier, whilst simultaneously making it easier for members of the public to see what jobs JJB Sports had on offer.

CMS features

The CMS consisted of a login area, control panel and the option to add/edit/delete jobs and frequently asked questions to the website. The CMS had several cool features:

• A help area which explains how to perform key tasks in the system.
• A simple text editor that turns plain text into HTML so administrators need never learn HTML.
• RSS feeds which are automatically created with the content created� by the administrators.

Website features

At the time, this website and CMS, represented where I wanted JJB’s future web redesigns to progress to. It was a forward-thinking website that put RSS at the forefront in a bid to educate people about how best to use a frequently updated website.

The site featured:

• Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict web-pages. It must be noted that every attempt has been made to make it difficult to add non-valid mark-up.
• RSS 2.0 feed converted to XHTML 1.0 Strict with XSL.
• CSS Print style-sheet.
• CSS Handheld style-sheet for mobile phone users.
• Easy to understand structure
• Fully functionally Content Management System for administrative purposes, complete with unobstrusive JavaScript that aids usability and limits errors.
• Basic search engine.
• Flexible vertical design - meaning the site works if people resize the text in their browser or if a section of text added by an administrator is unusually large, the design will not break.

Accessibility

Accessibility was at the forefront of my mind when designing this site and I hoped any disabled users found it much easier to use than the majority of websites made by large companies at the time. Turnign off the CSS revealed a solid HTML structure with skip linsk that meant gettign around the site was easy.

Browsers

This design worked in the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer for Windows versions 5, 5.5, and 6
• Internet Explorer for Mac version 5
• Mozilla Firefox for Windows and Mac versions 1.0 and 1.5
• Safari for Mac versions 1.3 and 2.0
• Opera for Windows and Mac version 8.0

Note: JJB’s recruitment website was re-branded and relaunched in late 2007. However, the CMS I designed was still in use in 2008.