Innovative New Website Commemorates the Cold War
Recently, the Imperial War Museum launched What Lies Beneath, a new website exploring the history of the Cold War and its impact on Britain. The new site, which is powered by leading Web Content Management System Amaxus, is filled with engaging, sophisticated content that take visitors on a journey through this significant point in history.
Instead of presenting historical information in a traditional style, on What Lies Beneath, the IWM encourages visitors to navigate the history of the Cold War by interacting with themes and exploring the personal stories of people who were directly involved. All of this rich content is further animated by photos, high resolution scans of original documents, audio and video files, and links to extended information. Interactive elements open up in Lightboxes that enable users to zoom in and navigate through documents, allowing them to interact with these delicate objects in greater detail than they would likely be able to do in a non-virtual, real-world environment.
The IWM wanted to balance the interactive multi-media content of the website against a dedication to ensuring it is accessible to a wide audience, including people who may not have features such as Flash and Javascript enabled. During the implementation of the site, a progressive enhancement strategy was employed to ensure that users have access to all the basic content and functionality of each page, regardless of their browser, Internet Connection or settings, while still providing additional advanced functionality for those with the technology to make use of it. To assure optimal accessibility, visitors are also able to easily reverse the default design of white text on a black background if they find it difficult to read or navigate.
“This beautifully designed and constructed new website is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about the Cold War,” said Benno Wasserstein, Managing Director of Box UK, the company responsible for Amaxus. “We’ve had the privilege of working with the Imperial War Museum on their main website, which launched a number of years ago. Amaxus is a great tool for museums because it excels at managing large volumes of content from documents and PDFs, to videos and audio files – all using an interface, which makes the process of creating sophisticated content easy.”
About the Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum is unique in its coverage of conflicts, especially those involving Britain and the Commonwealth, from the First World War to the present day. It seeks to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and ‘war-time experience’. It is proud to be regarded as one of the essential sights of London.
The Museum spans a huge range of activities not only at its main London location but also at its four further branches: the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall, the historic ship HMS Belfast, moored in the Pool of London, Imperial War Museum Duxford near Cambridge, and Imperial War Museum North in Trafford.
About Amaxus
A market-leading platform capable of running multiple multi-lingual sites from a single platform, Amaxus provides clients with functionality, flexibility and scalability. With over ten years experience building large-scale websites that enable users to create sophisticated content easily, our impressive client list ranges from FTSE 100 companies to international standards bodies and leading organisations across the UK public and heritage sector. Amaxus is a product of Box UK, with offices based in London and Cardiff, UK.
For more information on this project or Amaxus call us at +44 (0)20 7439 1900 or email enquiries@amaxus.com.