Case study, 2010 to current
Coeliac UK
When Coeliac UK needed to get their new website over the line, I was brought in to lead the content migration and to keep the project moving forward. The role was part developer, part project manager, and part translator sitting between the client and the agency, helping to make sure both sides understood what the other was doing and why.
Coeliac UK, the UK's leading charity for people living with coeliac disease, needed some support getting their new website over the line. I was brought in independently by the digital agency managing the build to act as a bridge between the charity and the agency, taking the lead on the content migration and the page-building process all the way through to launch day.
The relationship that started there has genuinely lasted. The platform now supports more than 50,000 members and is one of the longest-running pieces of work I've ever been involved with.
The project had a hard deadline and an awful lot of moving parts. With no dedicated digital resource in-house and several different teams across the organisation involved in the work, keeping the migration on track really required as much people management as it did technical work.
Different teams had different priorities, and without someone to coordinate the conversations, progress quietly stalled. The brief that wasn't actually written down anywhere was a simple one: keep the launch date, keep the relationship between the agency and the charity healthy, and leave the in-house team confident enough to run the site themselves afterwards.
I took ownership of the page-building and the content migration process, working directly with Coeliac UK's own teams to get the content properly structured, reviewed and published within the new WordPress site. The build leans on Advanced Custom Fields for the editor-friendly templates, which means the in-house team can update content themselves without needing to come back to a developer every time.
Alongside the hands-on work, I acted as the primary point of contact between the charity and the digital agency, translating technical decisions back into plain language and keeping both sides aligned with each other.
A really big part of the role was helping the client understand what was their responsibility versus what was the agency's, which reduced friction across the project and kept things moving forward. The charity team came out of the project with a clear mental model of how the site worked, not just admin access to it.
50,000+
Members served · 15 years live · WordPress + ACF
- The content migration was completed in full and the site launched on the original deadline.
- The client teams were left with a clear understanding of how to manage the site themselves day to day.
- A smooth handover, even with several different teams across the organisation involved.
- A working relationship that's lasted across multiple iterations of the platform since.
In their words
“Dan was the calm hand we needed at the centre of the project. He kept the build, the agency and our internal team all moving in the same direction. Years later, the platform he helped us land is still doing the job.”
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