Louise Fox – Freelance Web Developer

Author: louise

  • Cambrionix – Modernised website with Shopify integration

    Cambrionix – Modernised website with Shopify integration

    Cambrionix are market leaders in industrial USB hubs, and had just undergone rebranding. They needed their website modernising to reflect this – along with improved user experience and functionality. 

    I was the developer on this project while working for Wholegrain Digital Agency. In just four months we delivered a brand new, modern, accessible and future-fit website, designed to grow with the company.

    The requirement was a WordPress custom themed web build, which integrated Products from their existing Shopify store, and Contact forms from their 3rd party marketing system. My development work was delivered comfortably within the development budget.

    High customer satisfaction – despite the tight project turnaround – ensured the company signed up for an ongoing contract with Wholegrain.

    See the full details on Wholegrain’s Case Study

  • New Image Tiles – Online store and custom tile calculator

    New Image Tiles – Online store and custom tile calculator

    New Image Tiles is a high end Kitchen, Bathroom and tile company based in Weymouth. My responsibility was to rebuild their whole website and Woocommerce shop as a developer for Key Digital Agency.

    The most fun challenge was building a bespoke Javascript tile calculator that integrated with WooCommerce.

    This read each product’s specifications (width and length per tile, and number of tiles per box) so the number of tiles, number of boxes, and an instant price could be calculated for the customer’s project

    (Click the image to visit the page)

    Other requirements included stylised booking forms –

    And stylised product filters within the shop –

    The project also involved importing their extensive catalogue of tiles into WooCommerce for online sales.

    Read more on Key Digital Website

  • Green Jobs for Nature – Career profiles to engage a diverse audience

    Green Jobs for Nature – Career profiles to engage a diverse audience

    Green Jobs for Nature aims to highlight green career options for graduates, and it was important the credentials of the website were as green as possible (low carbon and efficient) to reflect the target audience.

    I was the developer on this project while working for Wholegrain Digital. It is a custom WordPress site for CIEEM (the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management) – built using Wholegrain’s starter WordPress theme.

    The aim was to create an engaging, impactful design to appeal to a younger and more diverse audience, and an admin area that was easy for editors to manage. Especially to keep adding new job profiles (a custom post type) which dynamically appear in the correct categories.

    Read the full details Wholegrain’s website

  • Digital Doctor – WordPress integration with WP Fusion

    Digital Doctor – WordPress integration with WP Fusion

    This was a low budget site build with no existing design.

    Working with Digital Doctor’s brand assets (site logo, images and preferred fonts) and within a budget of 2-3 days, I achieved the following –

    • Created a design and layout that met both accessibility standards (tested using Silktide) and client approval
    • Build the site using a custom WordPress block theme
    • Integrate mulitple Gravityforms with WP Fusion systems
    • Pass all lighthouse metric tests
  • Rural Business Mortgages – Bespoke online mortgage calculator

    Rural Business Mortgages – Bespoke online mortgage calculator

    A complete site rebuild in WordPress – using content exported from their legacy CMS. Custom post types and functionality were mapped, and design was subtly improved to meet accessiblity requirements.

    The most significant development task was rebuilding and simplifying their Javascript mortgage calculator. This was integrated with Gravityforms to enable visitors to email themselves a copy of their calculation. It also integrates with chart.js to display a dynamic graph of repayments.

    Work undertaken as a freelancer for Egret Digital.

  • Mama Cash – International and multilingual website for feminist activism charity

    Mama Cash – International and multilingual website for feminist activism charity

    Mama Cash is a large International organisation, lending this project some additional challenges of communicating and collaborating on a truly international basis – with teams based in different continents, languages and time zones. This was a collaboration over almost two years.

    The charity needed a website redesign and rebuild to enable visitors to more easily find information and understand Mama Cash’s mission.

    They required the ability to translate content into 5 different languages with granular control – since automatic browser translation was not sufficient for the sensitive and nuanced nature of their writing. We undertook extensive research of the different translation tools available to WordPress before settling on WPML – based on cost and flexibility. Through the system we set up, they are able to automate the bulk of translation but have the copy manually checked and edited by native speakers of English, Dutch, French, Russian and Spanish.

    The website also integrates with their FundraiseUp donation platform, allowing supporters to make donations.

    As the only female developer at Wholegrain, it was important to Mama Cash that I take the lead on this website build.

    More details via Wholegrain’s website

  • Dixon Health Chiropractors – Integrated booking and reviews

    Dixon Health Chiropractors – Integrated booking and reviews

    Working as a freelancer for Egret Digital, I built a new WordPress website for Dixon Health Chiropractors from the supplied Figma design.

    I designed the architecture to support the multi-clinic locations and a team of practitioners – so that team members can be filtered by the locations where they work.

    The site has integrated Cliniko booking forms and Google Reviews for each clinic.

  • Ascot Advisory – Brochure site with WP Fusion integration

    Ascot Advisory – Brochure site with WP Fusion integration

    A site I built as a freelancer for Digital Doctor. The client supplied branding and images, from which I had to come up with a design based on inspiration sites that they liked.

    The total budget for design and build was 3 days. This is a WordPress site with a custom block theme and Gravityforms which integrate with WP Fusion.

    The client had a strong desire for a sticky header, which was fun to build, although I recommended against this (and still do!) for accessibility reasons.

  • Durrington FC – Designed and built in a day

    Durrington FC – Designed and built in a day

    This project had minimal budget, and no design input or assets.
    I designed and built the website in less than a day – based on their logo and content.

    (Not yet launched)

  • Egret Digital – Portfolio for digital agency

    Egret Digital – Portfolio for digital agency

    New site build for Egret Digital when modernising their brand from Dorset Web Design.

    Development budget was minimal so the focus was on simple, streamlined design and WordPress architecture, to yield efficient performance. Lighthouse scores were very high until multiple tracking scripts and a chatbot were added, which brought performance down.

  • Discover Dorchester – Visitor information directory

    Discover Dorchester – Visitor information directory

    When Dorchester’s bricks-and-mortar Tourist Information Centre had to close, the Discover Dorchester website was commissioned to help fill the gap.

    Built during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2021, it played an important role helping the town try and bounce back from the effects of lockdown, the loss of visitors and the closure of many museums and attractions.

    Discover Dorchester is a map-based directory of tourist attractions, businesses and amenities in and around Dorchester, which the visitor can search and filter on their preferences, for example “dog-friendly places to eat and drink”, or “EV car charging”.

    Any places of interest can be saved to the visitor’s list of ‘Favourites’.

  • RTS Support Group – Redesign and build charity website

    RTS Support Group – Redesign and build charity website

    Scoping with the client – who are all charity volunteers of varying technical mind – to gather their pain points about the existing website, and inspiration sites which they liked the look and feel of.

    Next, logically breaking down the structure of the current website, and reorganising it. This had originally been built for free using Elementor/Astra and was not easy to edit. Therefore extra content had been bolted on in illogical places as they were unable to add new pages and menu items.

    Redesign new visuals and UX for the website – although I’m not usually a designer, I took on this role as there was no-one else. I enjoyed the creativity, and am pretty happy with the outcome in the time available.

    As part of the rebuild I streamlined the site – getting rid of Elementor and Astra and most of their other plugin bloat. I used a much simpler custom block theme which is easy for the client to edit, and reuse the blocks.

    Not yet Live

  • Our Local Expert – Business directory and reviews

    Our Local Expert – Business directory and reviews

    This was a large freelance project for Egret Digital – rebuilding an extensive trade directory in WordPress from a legacy Joomla system.

    This required exporting and importing thousands of businesses and their associated reviews and categories from the old CMS while retaining data integrity. All data then had to be mapped to new IDs so that new reviews and categories could be added to the same business going forward.

    Customers can add new reviews or recommend any of the businesses via Gravityforms. Businesses and trades can be searched via Algolia.

  • The Nutrition Vet – Small business brochure and blog

    The Nutrition Vet – Small business brochure and blog

    A project completed while freelancing for Egret Digital. With a budget of less than 2 days development time for the complete build – an example of simplicity and efficiency.

    The design may look basic but we prefer to think of it as simple but effective! The client has seen huge improvement in Google rankings and potential enquiries since launch.

  • WordPress Maintenance – Ecover, Acturis, Zaytoun and others

    WordPress Maintenance – Ecover, Acturis, Zaytoun and others

    While at Wholegrain Digital I was responsible for maintaining and updating the WordPress websites for a number of key clients.

    This requires careful testing (first on Staging), attention to detail, and occasionally fixing issues when core and plugin updates don’t go smoothly.

    Examples:

  • Nu-Heat Underfloor Heating Systems – New features and web tools

    Nu-Heat Underfloor Heating Systems – New features and web tools

    I helped improve functionality and add new sections to Nu-Heat’s existing website over several years while working for Wholegrain Digital Agency.

    One of my favourite examples is this Selector Tool – which helps customers understand which heating systems could be suitable for their home improvement projects – https://www.nu-heat.co.uk/underfloor-heating/ufh-selector-tool/

  • Acturis Insurance Software – Multisite migration

    Acturis Insurance Software – Multisite migration

    Acturis is a large multisite with subsites serving different countries and languages – including France, Canada and Germany as well as the UK and USA.

    When they underwent rebranding, they also needed to streamline their services by moving to new hosting. This had to be a staged migration to accommodate timescales for different teams. The subsites were updated and launched one at a time.

    This meant a staged updating of DNS, and keeping track of which subsite was the live version across multiple servers! An exercise in attention to detail, to make sure there was no downtime or loss of transactional data.

    I worked on this migration (and subsequent WordPress maintenance) as a developer for Wholegrain Digital.

    More information on Wholegrain website

  • Dorset Wine – online store syncs stock levels with physical shop

    Dorset Wine – online store syncs stock levels with physical shop

    I was the developer on this project while working for Key Digital Agency.

    The brief was to build a Woocommerce shop to showcase Dorset Wine’s extensive selection – which could be filtered by categories such as Country, Region, Grape Variety and Style.

    Custom logic was written so that multi-buy discounts could be offered. The site also calculates delivery cost based on postcode and distance from the physical shop in Dorchester.

    The stock levels are synced daily to reflect sales in the physical shop.

  • South Lytchett Manor – Award winning Camping and Caravan Park

    South Lytchett Manor – Award winning Camping and Caravan Park

    I was the developer on this project while working for Key Digital Agency. Key aspects of the build included integrating with the campsite booking system, and building a custom “Things to Do” section which could be filtered by category and map location.

    Read the full details on Key Digital’s website

  • Nature Conservation Imaging – The photographs of Jeremy Early

    Nature Conservation Imaging – The photographs of Jeremy Early

    Conversion of an existing static HTML site into a dynamic PHP version that’s easier for the author to maintain – using common includes for headers, footers and menus.

    Again a custom solution before templated systems such as WordPress existed.

  • Lou Fox Tri – Elite Athlete blog and results CMS

    Lou Fox Tri – Elite Athlete blog and results CMS

    An entirely custom CMS system built using PHP / MySQL. Featuring dynamic blog and results sections which can be managed in the admin area.

    Before WordPress or any rival template systems existed as an out-of-the-box CMS, solutions had to be built by hand!

    https://louisefox.co.uk

  • Permavent Innovative Roofing – Brochure and e-commerce shop

    Permavent Innovative Roofing – Brochure and e-commerce shop

    I inherited this project from a previous developer who was unable to complete the work.

    The brief was to build two complimentary websites – firstly a Brochure site with full details and technical specifications of Permavent’s roofing products – aimed at architects, builders, merchants and contractors.

    And secondly, a separate mobile-friendly Woocommerce shop for product sales. This also featured a ‘Where to buy’ tool where customers can search for local stockists.

    Built while I was a developer at Key Digital Agency.
    Read more on their case study.

  • Fontmell Magna – Theme built in 1/2 day

    Fontmell Magna – Theme built in 1/2 day

    Fontmell Magna village archive had a 15-year old WordPress theme that was completely broken. They had a budget of 1/2 day to rebuild it using their existing content and brand.

    I streamlined the site and got the broken elements (search and query loops) working again with a super-simple custom block theme.

  • Target 22 Motorcycle Training – Course info and booking

    Target 22 Motorcycle Training – Course info and booking

    A freelance project for Egret Digital, with limited budget of 1-2 days development time for the complete site build.

    Featuring Google map locations and links to RideTo booking system.