The website for the University of Birmingham Virtual Reality Lab is a crucial resource, serving as the public-facing hub for our research, people, and projects. When I joined the lab, I saw an opportunity to significantly improve its technical foundation.
The Challenge: An Outdated Foundation
Upon inspecting the site’s codebase on GitHub, I noticed that the existing site, built with the Hugo framework, was outdated. I felt a modernised approach was needed, so I took the initiative to learn the fundamentals of Hugo and began the process of refactoring the entire thing from the ground up.
While web development wasn’t my strongest suit at the time and I encountered some headaches along the way, I enjoyed the challenge and the learning process immensely.
The Outcome: A Modernised and Maintainable Site
The supervising academic was very pleased with the comprehensive updates, which marked a significant overhaul compared to the minor changes from previous maintainers.
The results of the refactoring were:
- Successful Relaunch: We updated the site’s appearance publicly, providing a cleaner and more modern interface for visitors.
- Improved Maintainability: The cleaner codebase made it far easier to manage and update the site’s content.
- Collaborative Workflow: We established an ongoing maintenance process, allowing us to implement recommendations from lab members and continuously optimise the site as needed.