The Bright Side Blog: Project News and Events

Browse through our blog! Get the latest news about activities, developments and projects on behalf of our customers, as well as updates about the BSL team and events.

Our blog pages reflect our passion for software development. Our skills. Our Agile approach. Our commitment to deliver on-time, and on-budget. We demonstrate our passion time after time, as our project portfolio shows. Our blog tells you what interests us, and our clients. How our engineers and designers work closely with clients - large and small - to deliver reliable, innovative custom solutions. Learn how we create responsive web sites, and great mobile apps for iOS and Android. Whatever the challenge, our passion for software can help you to achieve your business goals. So get in touch, and find out just how the Bright Side of Life can help with your next project.




Careers website for Keylane

Careers website for Keylane

Keylane Careers Website

A new talent acquisition website optimised for search engines

Keylane Careers website

Keylane asked BSL to help design and build a new Careers website to support their Talent Acquisition team. The site’s main aim is to attract more visitors and candidates. To achieve this, we modified the site’s content and design to make it more attractive to search engines. In addition, we’ve made it easier for visitors to find vacancies on the website, and added support for multilingual job descriptions.

Optimized for search engines

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is essential for every website, as, without good SEO, the site will attract few visitors. For example, the previous Keylane Careers website focused solely on job postings with little additional content. Unfortunately, search engines consider this less engaging, leading to a low SEO score – and low organic traffic to your website.

Therefore, we’ve added Blogs and People Stories on the new website, telling visitors more about Keylane and providing examples of what it’s like to work there. The People Stories provide employees with a platform to tell their own stories and describe their work at Keylane. They also include videos and photos for sharing on social media sites. This material is much more attractive than a simple job listing, so the authors can optimise these articles for organic search, making the website more appealing to search engines.

Keylane Careers Website
Keylane Careers Website | Keylane careers vacature website

New website design

Website design also affects SEO scores. For example, we expect to achieve a higher SEO score by improving website performance. Sometimes we achieve this by optimising the size and type of images used on the site. In addition, we also ensure that the site is fully responsive, improving the SEO score even more. As a result, the website provides a good user experience for desktop, tablet and mobile visitors.

We worked on the design with Emily (Digital Animal). She is an experienced designer and developer and has worked at Keylane. Her experience and knowledge of the Keylane organisation were advantages during the project, as she knew who could provide the content we needed. After agreeing on the design with the client, we built the WordPress website in less than a month.

BSL and Digital Animal will train the Keylane content writers in writing SEO-friendly text and adding metadata to the website’s pages. We firmly believe these changes will increase their organic traffic. For example, a similar strategy for another international client led to a more than 400% traffic increase in just a few months.

Keylane Careers Website

Making the job search easier

On the old website, vacancies were segmented by internal business unit, each managed by a specific recruitment team. However, this segmentation is relatively meaningless to website users, who are more interested in the type of vacancy and the experience and skills required. By assigning keywords to each vacancy and adding the missing metadata, they have become much more accessible. Visitors can now find jobs easily by title/keyword, expertise and location. Moreover, when job details are displayed, similar positions are now displayed in a sidebar to alert the candidate to other exciting vacancies.

Keylane Careers website

A new Workable plug-in

Keylane uses Workable to manage open vacancies and process candidate applications. Workable is a recruitment software solution that provides an applicant tracking system (ATS) and talent CRM with visualised hiring pipelines, rich candidate profiles, interview kits and customised scorecards. Therefore, it was a no-brainer to use their Workable content as our source for job profiles within the Careers job website.

BSL had already created a Workable plug-in to link Workable to WordPress, with many more features than Workable’s standard widgets. During this project, we also made some improvements to this plug-in. For example, we added support for keywords and multilingual job postings.

Improving the application process

When candidates apply, they open a link to Workable so that they can provide all their details. The user also receives an e-mail with a link to the job on Workable, so they can quickly find the application again with one click if – for whatever reason – they abandon the original application process.

Contact details are stored in a database, fully compliant with GDPR guidelines. Keylane can use this database to contact potential candidates in the future when similar positions become available.

Contact

Are you interested in updating your website or want to increase your website traffic? Or are you looking for an entirely new website? Then, why not contact the Bright Side of Life for advice?

At BSL, you’ve come to the right place for…

WordPress experience

Would you like your current WordPress website redesigned or optimised? Or do you want us to build a completely new responsive website? Our developers have a lot of experience with WordPress. But they also know the ins and outs of Drupal and Joomla too. At BSL we often use standard CMS systems to deliver interfaces to larger back-end systems. So customers can update the website contents themselves.

Workable integration

For those unfamiliar with Workable: This is a leading hiring platform. They provide in-house recruiters and hiring teams with more ways to find more qualified candidates, and help them to identify and hire the best talent. We created a custom Workable plugin for the Keylane Careers website, so that all the vacancies can be shown automatically. Users can select jobs that interest them, using filters such as job type, location, and keywords.

Responsive design

BSL knows better than anyone how important it is to have responsive design. After all, more than 50% of potential web site visitors use mobile devices. This means that all parts of the web site must look beautiful and function well on every type of device. BSL ensures an optimal user experience on every type of device.

“We wanted Keylane to be able to extend the website themselves. So we choose WordPress and Divi – a framework that is easy to learn, and delivers great responsive websites quickly. We could design the site and create the basic pages. We gave Keylane access to the site on our servers, and helped build the technical features, like Workable integration, and site widgets. Once the site was ready, we could move it to a hosting provider within a couple of hours.”

Roderick

Front-end developer, Bright Side of Life

Boekwijzer website redevelopment

Boekwijzer website redevelopment

Boekwijzer Website

Dutch literature at your fingertips

Boekwijzer
Boekwijzer

Boekwijzer website

Every commercial app needs a website to promote the app and as a home for blogs, FAQs, terms and conditions and more. Our Boekwijzer app is no exception, so when a completely new version of our app was released, we revamped the Boekwijzer website. Our goal was to modernize the site, promote the new house style of the app, host any promotional material for the app and support app users. These are some of the main pages you will find in the app:

  • News
  • Blog
  • Frequently asked questions
  • Functions and explanations
  • Version control of the Boekwijzer app
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Contact page

Boekwijzer website

Every commercial app needs a website to promote the app and as a home for blogs, FAQs, terms and conditions and more. Our Boekwijzer app is no exception, so when a completely new version of our app was released, we revamped the Boekwijzer website. Our goal was to modernize the site, promote the new house style of the app, host any promotional material for the app and support app users. These are some of the main pages you will find in the app:

  • News
  • Blog
  • Frequently asked questions
  • Functions and explanations
  • Version control for the Boekwijzer app
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Contact page
BoekWijzer

Highlights of the Boekwijzer app

News

About everything that’s happening in the book world. As a literary lover, you’ll want to stay up to date with the latest news about books. And our app brings you the latest news each day. When you open BoekWijzer, you’ll find articles from sources such as de Volkskrant and Literair Nederland. Furthermore, the app updates itself with new articles throughout the week so that you will always be up-to-date with the latest literary news.

Blogs

Read a blog article! In addition to current news articles, you can also read BoekWijzer blogs within the website and the app. The central theme is naturally “literature”, and we do our best to focus on current topics, from recent book adaptations to the latest literature prizes. We post new blog articles at least every two weeks.

Books

We list the best-selling, best-reviewed and newest titles. The cover text, publisher, language, availability and price – you will find all this information in the app when choosing a book from the current selection. By pressing ‘Order’, it is possible to order a book from your library online from the various online stores of Bol.com and Libris. If you would like to receive a book from a particular author or recommend a title to a friend, the ‘Share’ option is always available!

Search

Do you want to find your favourite book, author or news in the app? Just click on the magnifying glass and type in a few search terms, such as the name of an author or part of a title. You can even use “*” as a wildcard if you aren’t sure of the spelling. BoekWijzer will search through all relevant articles, thousands of book titles and authors in seconds. What more could you want?

News

About everything that’s happening in the book world. As a literary lover, you’ll want to stay up to date with the latest news about books. And our app brings you the latest news each day. When you open BoekWijzer, you’ll find articles from sources such as de Volkskrant and Literair Nederland. Furthermore, the app updates itself with new articles throughout the week so that you will always be up-to-date with the latest literary news.

Blogs

Read a blog article! In addition to current news articles, you can also read BoekWijzer blogs within the website and the app. The central theme is naturally “literature”, and we do our best to focus on current topics, from recent book adaptations to the latest literature prizes. We post new blog articles at least every two weeks.

Books

We list the best-selling, best-reviewed and newest titles. The cover text, publisher, language, availability and price – you will find all this information in the app when choosing a book from the current selection. By pressing ‘Order’, it is possible to order a book from your library online from the various online stores of Bol.com and Libris. If you would like to receive a book from a particular author or recommend a title to a friend, the ‘Share’ option is always available!

Search

Do you want to find your favourite book, author or news in the app? Just click on the magnifying glass and type in a few search terms, such as the name of an author or part of a title. You can even use “*” as a wildcard if you aren’t sure of the spelling. BoekWijzer will search through all relevant articles, thousands of book titles and authors in seconds. What more could you want?

Why not take a look at the Boekwijzer website?

At BSL, you have come to the right place for…

Experience with WordPress

Do you want to have your current WordPress website modified or optimized? Or would you like to have a completely new responsive website built? Our developers have extensive experience with WordPress, but also know all the ins and outs of Drupal and Joomla. We regularly use standard CMS systems to interface with backend systems. So that clients can update website pages themselves.

Responsive design

BSL knows better than anyone how important it is to have responsive design. After all, more than 50% of potential web site visitors use mobile devices. This means that all parts of the web site must look beautiful and function well on every type of device. BSL ensures an optimal user experience on every type of device.

“We built the revamped Boekwijzer website using WordPress and Divi. The idea was to make the Boekwijzer website more modern and user-friendly. We started by designing a new logo and corporate identity, incorporating a fresher color green. By giving the content enough white space, the website looks calm and uncluttered. Designing and realizing the Boekwijzer web site was my first assignment within BSL.”

Patrick

Junior frontend developer and webdesigner, Bright Side of Life

BSL Reception system

BSL Reception system

Reception system

Showing you the way

Reception system

We’ve been busy designing and developing a new reception system for use in the Showoffice building in Breukelen. Our first challenge was creating an entirely new design because the previous system was outdated, and we wanted to add several new functions. We designed the reception system to help visitors to find the right office within the building. For example, the system shows an agenda where visitors can see with whom they have an appointment, in which office and on which floor. Best of all, each business in the building can add entries to the calendar and create news items. The screen switches automatically between several different layouts, showing the visitor agenda, local company news, and news items from nu.nl.

Receptiesysteem | Reception system
Color B/W
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Features

The reception system displays the agenda and news items, but that’s not all. We’ve added a weather forecast widget, showing the current weather and the weather forecast for the next five days.

We also designed a day and night mode and introduced a series of background images. Different images are displayed to match the current weather type. Also, the windows and widgets change position at regular intervals, and the background images move to avoid burn-in.

Do you want to learn more about the reception system or want your own system? Then please get in touch with us.

Color B/W
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Slide the bar in the image back and forth to see the day and night modes.

At BSL, you have come to the right place for…

Unique solutions

Okay, we love a challenge. And developments like this custom software for unstaffed receptions fit nicely into this category. We knew what the Showoffice needed, and no standard solution was available, so we developed and delivered a custom solution in just a couple of weeks. So bring your unique project idea to BSL, and we will review the options with you. In most cases, we can offer a fixed price for projects and promise a fixed-date delivery for an initial release. So completely risk-free!

A complete package of services

Every client has deadlines, and it is usually a given that clients want to get their new software up and running as soon as possible. Our in-house specialists can handle almost every aspect of modern software development, starting with modern designs and prototypes. Uniquely, we can also develop and integrate modules and APIs. And once your software is up and running, we can support you during software installation and future extensions and improvements.

Long term maintenance

Once a software product has gone into production, users need long-term support and maintenance. This is why we offer customers a range of flexible support services. These can include many options, such as 24/7 availability, guaranteed response times and on-site visits. All at a fixed annual price.

“We built the Reception System as a single-page application (SPA) using the Preact framework. Content such as appointments, news items, rss feeds and images are managed in Directus, a headless CMS. We use several third-party APIs such as AccuWeather and Feedly to display external content.”

Roderick

Front-end developer, Bright Side of Life

Beleev Software for Multisensory Environments

Beleev Software for Multisensory Environments

Beleev

Software to manage controlled multisensory environments

Beleev software for multisensory environments

SO/VSO St. Jan Baptist, a school for children with learning difficulties, approached BSL to ask us to develop custom software for a so-called snoezelruimte (snoozle room). Snoezelruimte is a Dutch term for controlled multisensory environments (MSE), designed to stimulate various senses using (moving) images, sound, light, colour, smells, and textures. MSE can often help people with developmental disabilities and children with autism who need rest and distraction.

The application

We developed Beleev, a media browser and player that helps students to navigate through a specially designed media library using a touch screen interface.

  • Media can be added using an external USB stick so that a specific child or group of children can view material tailored to their needs.
  • There are on-screen buttons for play, pause, next, previous and other functions.
  • We can control HUE lamps, so they show specific colours during videos.
  • With the help of a third-party tool, these lamps can follow the colours of the current image or video.
  • We also support the use of external hardware (such as large, child-friendly remote controls) to control the application.
  • The application can handle single and dual display configurations, where the video is shown over the interface on a single screen or full screen on the second screen.
Beleev software for multisensory environments
multisensory environments

Software features

Teachers and supervisors can opt to switch several features on or off. For example, they can turn off the HUE lights if a child is too susceptible to this type of stimuli. In addition, they can set the HUE lamps to a specific colour for each video or connect a beamer if they wish. When using a beamer, the Beleev software automatically switches it on and off when starting up and closing down. Moreover, the application supports a separate work light group that turns on when in sleep mode.

Because our multisensory environment software will run in different rooms that do not necessarily have identical specifications, supervisors can configure the software with a configuration file. They can choose which of the features are available. For example, the number of displays, HUE lamps and scenes, whether a projector will be used, and describe any available input hardware. They can also store the configurations for each specific feature, such as the IP address of the HUE bridge, or names and colours of the HUE scenes. We designed the software to be as flexible as possible, making it easy to configure the software for use in almost any location.

Software features

Teachers and supervisors can opt to switch several features on or off. For example, they can turn off the HUE lights if a child is too susceptible to this type of stimuli. In addition, they can set the HUE lamps to a specific colour for each video or connect a beamer if they wish. When using a beamer, the Beleev software automatically switches it on and off when starting up and closing down. Moreover, the application supports a separate work light group that turns on when in sleep mode.

Because our multisensory environment software will run in different rooms that do not necessarily have identical specifications, supervisors can configure the software with a configuration file. They can choose which of the features are available. For example, the number of displays, HUE lamps and scenes, whether a projector will be used, and describe any available input hardware. They can also store the configurations for each specific feature, such as the IP address of the HUE bridge, or names and colours of the HUE scenes. We designed the software to be as flexible as possible, making it easy to configure the software for use in almost any location.

multisensory environments

Multisensory environment gallery

Technical solution

Our engineers built the Beleev software largely using web technology. The web offers many APIs for control, media playback and – just as important – endless possibilities when it comes to building and displaying user interfaces. The web application in turn communicates with a small server application that hosts and presents the media content, controls HUE lamps, switches the projector on and off, etc.

We built the user interface with Preact, an alternative to Facebook’s popular React framework. The benefit of Preact is that it focuses solely on performance. In a nutshell, it offers the abstraction of React but Harder, Better, Faster, Smaller. There is a wealth of documentation available too as the API is virtually identical to React. This also means that many React libraries can also be used in Preact applications.

The server is a Node JS application comprising several modules. One module is responsible for accessing media files, another controls HUE equipment, and a third manages the beamer. This modular approach means we can easily expand the system with new features, and/or exchange one or more modules with other similar technology in future. By choosing NodeJS, we have been able to use a single programming language (JavaScript)  – for the entire application, making the development process more manageable.

multisensory environment - lighting

At BSL, you have come to the right place for…

Unique solutions

OK, we like a challenge. And unique developments, such as custom software for “snoozle” rooms, fit nicely into this category. Our client had very clear requirements, and no standard solution was available, so we designed, developed and delivered a custom solution. So bring your unique project to BSL, and we’ll discuss the options with you. We can usually give a fixed price for the project’s development and a clear development plan. As a result, there’s more or less no risk involved!

A full-service package

Every client has deadlines, and it’s usually a given that clients want to get their new software up and running as soon as possible. Our in-house specialists can handle almost every aspect of modern software development, starting with modern interface designs and prototypes. Uniquely, we can develop and integrate plugin modules and APIs to extend standard web CMSs to meet your every need. Then, once your software is ready for deployment, we can support you during the software installation and beyond with maintenance contracts and future extensions.

Maintenance for the long-term

Once a software product has gone into production, users need long-term support and maintenance. That’s why we offer customers a range of flexible support services. These can include many options, such as 24/7 availability, guaranteed response times and on-site visits. All at a fixed annual price.

“For each web development project, we set up an Agile team that can accommodate frequent changes during the design and development of the website. The BSL team can provide a full range of services encompassing a great deal of design and technical know-how to handle all aspects of the project in-house.”

Roderick

Front-end Developer, Bright Side of Life

NBD Biblion Databases

NBD Biblion Databases

NBD Biblion Databases

LiteRom and Uittrekselbank

NBD Biblion

NBD Biblion offers products, services and expertise in the field of media and content. They are the largest supplier of information and purchase advice for Public Libraries and (school) media centres in the Netherlands. Hundreds of new books and other media arrive at NBD Biblion every week. Each title is classified and reviewed by NBD Biblion, adding extensive metadata to each published title.

As well as this title information, NBD Biblion provides reviews and additional information about recent books and authors. They also publish high-quality extracts and author profiles for libraries, schools, and other organisations.

BSL created the More over Media system (MOM) to input and manage the content created by NBD Biblion. In addition to content management, MOM includes several services and APIs that are used to publish the content and make it accessible for subscribers.

To make the reviews, extracts and author profiles easily accessible for registered users, BSL developed two products for NBD Biblion: LiteRom and Uittrekselbank. Designed together with Spankracht, they are known  as the NBD Databases or ‘Databanken’.

NBD Biblion Databanses
LiteRom Databases

LiteRom

LiteRom is a digital information source with more than 100,000 high-quality and reliable articles from Dutch and Belgian newspapers. You will find many book reviews and related information here, including author interviews. Alongside an archive that dates back to 1900, LiteRom is updated daily to respond to current events. With all this background information at their fingertips, users can delve deep into Dutch literature.

Depending on their subscription, some LiteRom users can access additional selections of children’s- and international literature.

We developed the LiteRom website with Drupal 9. It is accessible to students, public library visitors, and members of various organisations. Users frequently access the site from different locations, such as schools, (public) libraries, and home (as a student or library member). In most cases, authorisation is automatic, so users don’t usually need to log in manually. We achieve this by adopting a complex underlying authorisation process, with an Identity Provider (IdP) developed by BSL, integrated with NBD Biblion’s client registration system, and platforms from Kennisnet and the Dutch National Library (KB).

 

 

 

LiteRom

LiteRom is a digital information source with more than 100,000 high-quality and reliable articles from Dutch and Belgian newspapers. You will find many book reviews and related information here, including author interviews. Alongside an archive that dates back to 1900, LiteRom is updated daily to respond to current events. With all this background information at their fingertips, users can delve deep into Dutch literature.

Depending on their subscription, some LiteRom users can access additional selections of children’s- and international literature.

We developed the LiteRom website with Drupal 9. It is accessible to students, public library visitors, and members of various organisations. Users frequently access the site from different locations, such as schools, (public) libraries, and home (as a student or library member). In most cases, authorisation is automatic, so users don’t usually need to log in manually. We achieve this by adopting a complex underlying authorisation process, with an Identity Provider (IdP) developed by BSL, integrated with NBD Biblion’s client registration system, and platforms from Kennisnet and the Dutch National Library (KB).

LiteRom Databases

Uittrekselbank

The Uittrekselbank is a product that gives users access to detailed extracts and in-depth author profiles written by NBD Biblion editors. The product has many similarities with LiteRom. Both react to current topics, news, or high-profile authors that are presented on the home page. Books and authors are easy to find using the various search options. And if you are interested in the topic of a book, you can quickly find titles with the same theme. One particularly useful feature is that you can view LiteRom reviews from the Uittrekselbank website. And conversely, when using the Literom website you will find links to content in the Uittrekselbank.

The Databases have been developed using Drupal. However, the content for these products is provided by a single API – developed by BSL. What’s more, the reviews and extracts can also be viewed in NBD Biblion’s MOM product. This is a portal where users can access more information about any book found in a library catalogue.

Uittrekselbank Databases

At BSL, you have come to the right place for…

Long-term partnership
BSL has been able to quickly help this client, as we have developed many of their in-house systems and are familiar with their infrastructure and service partners. As new integration possibilities arise, our system architect works with the client and their partners (service providers and third-party developers), designing a suitable integration architecture.
Expertise in API-integration in standard CMSs
We have developers who are  familiar with integrating APIs for delivering content to standard CMSs, such as Drupal and WordPress. Our expertise in developing APIs using commercial databases (Oracle, SQL Server) and our front office expertise make the perfect match.
Continuous improvement

We have made many incremental improvements since we delivered the first system for publishing reviews and author profiles, both in content management and the frontend. We continuously update services as well. The Databases have been the most important addition. Here too, we deliver ongoing improvements each year.

“There was initially an API that provided access to reviews, author profiles and other information via different entry channels. These articles and texts also include basic information about each title. The interesting and challenging vision for the Databases is that the book becomes central. Once you’ve found a particular title, you can then access all reviews and author profiles that are available. In particular the complex authorisation process – that links multiple platforms to support every means of access – called for an interesting and challenging architecture.”

Eric

Software Architect , Bright Side of Life

Contact BSL
Contact BSL