Designing Websites for The Education Sector

01

Creating a personalised learning platform for pharmacy students

Pharmaceutical Press, the publishing arm of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, is renowned globally for producing trusted reference works used by pharmacists, academics, and students. For decades, their publications have been central to pharmaceutical learning, their target audience ranging from undergraduate studies to professional practice. These are often weighty volumes with regular updates and reissues as research progresses.

Redwing Interactive have worked in collaboration with Pharmaceutical Press since 2001 with the shared goal of transforming their extensive educational content into a comprehensive, user-friendly, online platform—pharmacyknowledge.com. Redwing Interactive provided bespoke development, responsive design, tailored integrations, and content expertise, creating a solution that evolves with pharmarcist's requirements.

In over two decades of collaboration, the project has showcased how a carefully engineered platform can make educational website design more accessible, interactive, and adaptable and how a long-term strategic collaboration ensures a stable growth of online presence.

02

Building an innovative educational platform

The Pharmaceutical Press library is vast, complex, and deeply valued by those who rely on it. Historically, these essential reference materials existed in print and legacy digital formats. As universities, tutors, and students increasingly embraced online learning, the challenge was to translate the Pharmaceutical Press library into an intuitive and flexible digital experience, while retaining the depth and richness of its content.

The website needed to develop in line with technology and user expectations, templated and off-the-shelf providers couldn’t provide a platform that would adapt and evolve over time.  Redwing Interactive specialises in tailored, bespoke designs for complex objectives.

Our remit required more than simply replicating the existing material online. The website needed to be intuitive and easy to access for all ability levels.  It needed to appeal to both students and lecturers/tutors and it also needed to be easy to manage the vast amount of content.

These requirements demanded an intricate blend of education-specific functionality, technical expertise, thoughtful design, and collaboration—a hallmark of our work in building educational websites.

03

Unifying the Pharmaceutical Press library into a single digital solution

To bring Pharmaceutical Press’s extensive print library into the digital domain, Redwing Interactive first tackled the challenge of content standardisation. Much of the material was originally stored in various legacy XML structures, which lacked uniformity and presented barriers to usability on a modern online platform.  This would also create barriers when creating the CMS for such a vast library of data.  Developing a uniform structure offered benefits not just for website development and design but also the wider organisation.

Redwing Interactive developed bespoke parsing scripts to address this. These scripts systematically transformed the entire content library into a consistent HTML structure. This meticulous process ensured that all materials could be accessed seamlessly online, providing a strong technical foundation for the website.

Our expertise in solving complex, unique website development challenges enabled Pharmaceutical Press to unlock the full potential of its library.

04

A tailored content management system

Another major benefit of working with Redwing Interactive is our content management system.  Our development team can tailor the CMS to each client, providing colleagues with the facilities they need to manage content creation quickly and easily and reducing admin time to a minimum.  Traditional content management systems cannot provide the flexibility and scale required for such large volumes of educational material, Redwing Interactive’s CMS is bespoke to the client.

This CMS enabled Pharmaceutical Press to break down large reference texts into smaller, individual learning objects—discrete pieces of content that could be used flexibly by tutors and students. These learning objects could be enhanced with additional media, including imagery and videos and also interactive learning aids and self-assessment tools.  This included multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and EMC self-test question sets.

The ability to manage a vast library of content intuitively is one of the principal reasons Pharmaceutical Press has continued to partner with Redwing Interactive for over two decades.  Pharmaceutical students worldwide now depend on this platform for education and research.

05

Creating an intuitive online library

The core objective for the website is to provide an intuitive online library where educators and students could search, browse, and curate materials effortlessly. This needs an understanding of what constitutes a well-designed website combined with creative expertise.

Redwing Interactive's design team developed a responsive website interface that works across devices and offers a clean, user-centred experience. At its core, pharmacyknowledge.com was built to support a range of user needs:

• For Tutors: The platform enables tutors to assemble customised reading lists and activities, making it easier to align content with course objectives. This flexibility ensures that the Pharmaceutical Press library remains adaptable to evolving academic curriculums.
• For Students: Students can navigate the clean design and explore the full library with ease, accessing content that aligns with their syllabus or independent learning goals. Features such as search functionality and personalised activity plans meet accessibility requirements and increases engagement.
• For Academics: The library provides a comprehensive, always up to date, repository of research from almost every author or publisher from around the globe.

Being able to find and use specific content from the massive collection required a powerful search function as a top priority.  Search also needed to be as user friendly as possible, with many similar academic facilities relying on complex Boolean search engines which often required an understanding of logic and can create a poor browsing experience.  Redwing Interactive's search function takes users to the content they are looking for simply and quickly.

06

Tailored integrations provide seamless access for educational organisations

One of the key considerations in educational website design is ensuring that platforms integrate effectively with institutional systems. Universities have their own infrastructure for managing content access and eLearning, so pharmacyknowledge.com needed to fit seamlessly into these environments.

Redwing Interactive developed tailored integrations to support single sign on with systems such as Shibboleth or OpenAthens so tutors and students can access the platform using their university credentials, creating a frictionless user experience.  The platform also enables the exchange of content with popular learning management systems (LMS), ensuring that resources are readily accessible alongside other course materials.

These integrations have been instrumental in driving adoption of the platform from a large number of universities and educational institutions.

07

Over two decades of collaboration and partnership

The success of pharmacyknowledge.com is a testament to the power of long-term partnership. Since 2001, Redwing Interactive has worked closely with Pharmaceutical Press in evolving the website to incorporate new UX developments and ensure that the user experience remains at the heart of the site.  As technology has advanced, the website has increased in speed and maintained an exceptionally high level of reliability and new security and cookie management updates have been implemented. All while keeping content creation and management as easy as possible for colleagues.

As with all partnerships, close communication and feedback from both sides has kept the website at the forefront of educational resources.

08

Website designers for the education sector

The collaboration between Redwing Interactive and Pharmaceutical Press demonstrates how collaborative educational website interactive design can transform learning. pharmacyknowledge.com successfully makes it easier for educators and students to access, curate, and interact with essential content.

By combining bespoke script creation, a tailored content management system, user-centred design, and seamless integrations, Redwing delivered a platform that meets the complex demands of modern education.

Our long-standing partnership with Pharmaceutical Press reflects our commitment to delivering websites that evolve and adapt over time, ensuring they remain at the cutting edge of functionality and usability.

pharmacyknowledge.com stands as a powerful example of education website design solutions that can be achieved through collaboration, expertise, and an unwavering focus on the target audience.