To redesign a site with a total of over 3000 pages, documents and images is never easy. But after 4 months from initial design pitches to final development tweaks, the new Evangelical Alliance site went live without a hitch.

With content varying from local good news stories to national press releases; and pages needing the ability to include videos, audio recordings or images, designing with flexibility in mind was key. Here are a few things to remember -

Keep an eye on the length

Whether it’s a 3 liner page title or a 75 character article description, each can vary from article to article so it’s important to plan both having large page titles and a smaller ones.

Cut and carry on

If you’re having to cut a long article description try to continue what’s written once a user clicks through to the article. This is especially important if the description is cut mid-sentence.

Keeping images constant

Usually when seeing a small thumbnail image, users expect to see a larger version of the same image within that article. Keeping these images similar helps to keep consistency within the content.

Plan for nothing

Don’t forget to plan for when articles don’t have a thumbnail image or a featured image selected. It’s easy for users uploading content to forget to set a featured image so providing a default image can help the site’s layout stay consist. Have a collection of different default images that are randomly selected can be a nice touch too.

These are just a few things to keep in mind when designing for large websites but what have you found important to keep in mind?