Interview: CEHD Web site redesign

This is the tenth in a several-part series of interviews with communicators who have redesigned or
updated their Web sites. If you have redesigned your site or have a site to suggest for these interviews, let us know.

In this edition: Susan Andre and Nuria Sheehan on the College of Education and Human Development Web site redesign

What were your reasons for redesigning the site?
It really had been pretty clear that the site was overdue for a redesign. The last redesign had been in 2001 and since that time not only had Web standards evolved, but CEHD also drastically changed, becoming a new college.

The primary goal in redesigning the site was to create a straightforward, intuitive structure and design for our audiences. A secondary goal was to be able to implement not only the actual site, but also an internal overall process that could be flexible and agile in order adapt to new types of content or update easily with changing Web standards. An important part of this flexibility involved creating content dynamically driven by our blogs or other applications.

What kind of user research or user testing did you do?
User testing was very important to us in this process and we did testing on terminology, homepage concepts, and overall wireframe usability. Because we identified the primary purpose of the site as a tool for recruiting and retaining students, most of the testing focused on student content.

We first completed the terminology testing with the Usability Lab last summer. Then, when students were back on campus, we did the homepage concept testing at the CEHD block party. We surveyed students, faculty, and staff on three distinct concepts for the homepage splash module: academic departments (focusing on the disciplines within each department), people (highlighting CEHD students, faculty, and alumni), and history (which showed the historic advances at the U in the areas of education and human development alongside current innovations). From this survey we received over 130 responses with the "people" concept getting the most votes.

When we had completed wireframes, we did the usability testing with the Usability Lab. From that testing we found that the overall structure was working well and which specific areas needed to be reworked.

What factors went in to the organization of the site?
The most important factor in organizing the site was that it be audience-focused rather than representing internal silos. The entire redesign process, and particularly in terms of coming up with top-level categories and a structure, was very collaborative with a redesign group made up of members from across the college.

From these group meetings, it was clear that a consistent navigation in addition to complex menus for specific areas was needed, so we decided to represent the structure with a prominent top navigation along with area-specific left navigation.

How did you think about the visual design of your site within the context of the University brand?
With the new design we continued to follow University recommendations by implementing the latest version of branding standards. The brand is carried through in the use of the Neutra font along the main navigation and colors that work well with maroon and gold.

What was the biggest challenge, and how did you get past it?
At early stages in the process there hadn't been key contact identified for all areas. Without those contacts it was challenging to move forward on certain areas, but we found that by continuing to ask directors or others in positions of leadership, that we did eventually ended up with a working group of very engaged participants from all areas.

How did you manage the project and keep it on track?
We created a timeline which included a combination of very firm and some more flexible dates. Having some firm dates early in process (for example, wireframe usability testing), helped keep things on track. Once we were at the stage to start gathering content, we created an inventory of all the pages and descriptions of content needed. In order to pull this together, individuals responsible for delivering source content were identified and given deadlines.

We also had frequent meetings with either the large redesign or smaller groups to be able to adapt either process or content as needed.

What did you learn from the process?
Emphasizing a site redesign as an ongoing process more than a final product helped us take a more flexible and long-term view of the effort. It also useful in getting buy-in from stakeholders; they knew that there would continue to be opportunities for change if certain things weren't working. This outlook helped all of us have an openness to try new things.

How are you evaluating the redesign's success?
We feel like the site has just moved on to the next redesign phase: a continuous and iterative redesign so that hopefully we can easily make improvements as our content and audience expectations change. So we're working with students to get feedback and do more informal usability testing and are using custom reports in Google Analytics.

The Conversation Prism--and bringing social media into our lives

I've had the pleasure of co-hosting two social media brown baggers for Forum members, and the events have been just like I thought they'd be. We have some stellar early adopters here at the U, and they are enormously generous in sharing what they know and how they did it. And we have a lot of people who are wondering where in the world to start. When I look at The Conversation Prism, I can understand why.

The Conversation Prism was designed by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas in 2008 to "provide a visual representation of the
true expansiveness of the Social Web and the conversations that define
it." They've since updated their graphic, and one look at their beautiful, rainbow flower of possibilities can strike fear into the heart of the part-time communicator who has, like, five minutes a week to focus on social media for her program.

A repeating question at the brown bags has been, if you think you need social media, "what do you want to get out of it?" And the Conversation Prism does a nice job of ordering our communications methods and priorities, placing Brand at the center.

Social media can be intimidating, and as the Prism so clearly shows us, the possibilities are endless and astounding--blog? Facebook? Flickr? Why? And as long as new sites and services are created and old ones fall out of favor (Friendster, anyone?) this will continue to be a fluid subject. Luckily, with a little guidance from the Conversation Prism and a lot of advice from your fellow communicators, we have the means to wrestle social media to the ground and make it do our bidding.

The next social media brown bag will be on Friday, May 21 in 202 Johnston Hall.

Monday link roundup 4.12.10

Here are a few links swirling around at the MinneWebCon conference today.

 

Keynote, Kristina Halvorson, CEO of Brain Traffic, gave a great talk about Web content. Here is the link to Brain Traffic's blog: http://blog.braintraffic.com.

Geek Girls: http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/

For the second keynote Wendy Chisolm spoke about accessibility: http://sp1ral.com/

 

Did any other Forum members go to MinneWebCon? If so, post any additional links you jotted down!

Interview: Giving to the U of M Web site redesign

This is the ninth in a several-part series of interviews with communicators who have redesigned or updated their Web sites. If you have redesigned your site or have a site to suggest for these interviews, let us know.

In this edition: A team effort! Glen Beltt, Christina Morgan, Mike Peluso, Todd Proctor, and Karl Raschke on the Giving to the U of M Web site

What were your reasons for redesigning the site?
Our team had a few main goals. Above all, we needed to more effectively highlight the terrific multimedia features being created within the Foundation that show donors what their gifts are helping to achieve. To do that, we included a jQuery content rotator that's working pretty well so far. Incidentally, we'd love to share our multimedia content with other units around the U through Media Mill or whatever other means is most convenient to use as appropriate within their own sites .

In addition, we wanted to update the Giving site in various ways: to strengthen our continuity with the University by using the new templates, to modernize the visual look of the site, and to update the code to make it more semantic and accessible using tableless CSS and clean HTML. Those changes have made the site easier to maintain as well. Also, we implemented Dreamweaver templating for the first time.

What kind of user research or user testing did you do?
Mostly we ended up relying on the "Rule of Common Sense." Because we overhauled our site in phases, and had to work in the redesign between a lot of other projects, we're doing our research and testing more after the fact, primarily through informal feedback and review of our Google Analytics stats, which we use extensively. We've recently learned about some interesting usability tools that we're beginning to test out.

What factors went in to the organization of the site?
Aside from the need to highlight multimedia content, we took a lot of our cues from the University templates. Our navigation and other aspects of our information architecture were already pretty well settled and appeared to be working well. One challenge, to which we're still refining our response, is how to best take advantage of the wider view port. We were optimized for 800x600 before, but now we're up to 960 wide. We've added a narrow right column to most pages, and we're gradually developing ideas for how to use the extra space. The 960 width provides some nice multimedia options, too.


How did you think about the visual design of your site within the
context of the University brand?
The Foundation is a separate
entity from the University, but our mission is totally in support of the
University's broad mission so we want our site to reflect that. Still,
we wanted to add features that makes us distinctive while still staying
within the University's web policies and templates. Hopefully, we struck
a good balance.

What was the biggest challenge, and how did you
get past it?
Probably just finding the time to get things done
amidst other demands. With our move to tableless CSS, we had the typical
problems to overcome with browser compatibility issues. We also
experimented with different approaches to featuring multimedia to see
what would work best, but we just kept plugging away until we found
something we were happy with and that worked well across all browsers.
Mobile devices are an ongoing challenge.
 
How did you manage the
project and keep it on track?
All of us contributed in different
ways. We didn't have a hard deadline other than "as soon as possible,"
but it became more and more exciting as we saw how things were coming
together. In the end, we did a phased launch where we pushed out a new
home page before we updated the rest of the site. That's not ideal, but
it helped motivate us to get the rest of it done quickly. The feedback
on the new home page was so positive that we knew that we didn't want
the rest of the site to lag behind for very long!

What tips do
you have for other units redesigning their Web sites?
We talked about this, and our thoughts
included: "Don't be afraid to try new things and ideas" and "If you need
additional resources, don't be afraid to borrow from elsewhere." I'd
add that if you're doing this as a team as we did, it's really important
to be open to everyone's contributions and work to develop a unified
vision of what you're trying to achieve together and how you're going to
get there. It's also good to not try to do too many things at once.
Whether it's because of how fast the online world changes or something
else, it seems like sometimes solutions to difficult problems just
surface over time if you keep working at it and pace yourself in making
changes.

How are you evaluating the redesign's success?
Google
Analytics is our most important tool right now. We can see that we've
been able to generate much more traffic to our multimedia content
especially, which is the result of a variety of additional tactics
including e-mail campaigns, syndication efforts, and some social media
support -- from YouTube and iTunesU, for example. The continuing growth
in online giving and informal feedback that we've receiving from our
audiences, which has been overwhelmingly positive, also are encouraging.

Interview: Alumni Association Web site redesign

This is the eighth in a several-part series of interviews with communicators who have redesigned or
updated their Web sites. If you have redesigned your site or have a site to suggest for these interviews, let us know.

In this edition: Forum member Chris Coughlan Smith on
the Alumni Association Web site

What were your reasons for redesigning the site?
Some aspects of our old site were not user friendly and the CMS was not able to handle updates and interactive features that Web users have come to expect. Our old look was dated - essentially the same as it had been since 2001 with only minor updates to our CSS when we went through branding.

What kind of user research or user testing did you do?
We had done extensive surveys and focus groups as part of the branding research, and then we did more focus groups with campus constituents and partners. As we refined our site structure we did some quick online navigation testing and then a round of usability testing with the Usability Lab. Both were extremely helpful. I'd highly recommend building in a few weeks to test and revamp your site before launch.

What factors went in to the organization of the site?
We hired a design firm to come up with an information architecture that made sense to an outside user. At the same time we had a number of strong branding personality concepts that we wanted to include. The outside firm helped us refine categories and sort our major areas of information and do the testing.


How did you think about the visual design of your site within the context of the University brand?
Well, we want a maroon and gold site, naturally, but also one distinct from the U, as we are a separate 501.c3 nonprofit. We had our own 'ambassador' theme to incorporate as well as the U's 'Discover' theme, which I love as a navigation element.

What was the biggest challenge, and how did you get past it?
I hate to say it, but internal politics. We just kept talking to stakeholders and constituents again and again to see if we had come to an incorrect conclusion on the direction we wanted to go. But every time we interviewed folks about their experiences and looked at the economics of it, we kept coming back to the same conclusions, which we restated more and more clearly.

After that it was the sheer volume of information to be migrated. We had some 1,500 pages on our old site. While we trashed some of them, we're still moving a last few areas over (like magazine issue archives back to 2001). One of the best pieces of advice I received was to survey your current site and decide what to kill and what to bring forward and where it goes before you start the actual migration. Then I set students and others loose on just moving stuff where it needed to go. We moved more than 800 pages over in the six weeks from having our designs implemented until we launched and are now up to more than 1,300 pages on the site.

How did you manage the project and keep it on track?
This was a challenge! I'm not a project manager and I don't like to delegate, so it was tough. Early on I relied on the design vendor and the software vendor to keep the project design steps on track. We developed an Excel spreadsheet that had weekly focus and goals for the vendors and for us, which was very helpful. Once it got down to the real building, I designated some colleagues I trusted to handle the full build of their areas. In most cases that worked but in a few it ended up being a lot of work as there was duplication and a little lack of following directions. I did have one instance where a colleague volunteered to take on responsibilities and did not follow through, but I had an inkling that would happen and so was prepared. In retrospect, it might have been a good idea to get everyone involved at some level, as now I am having to re-train/re-encourage resistant staff.

What tips do you have for other units redesigning their Web sites?
Develop a project plan that includes goals and objectives for the redesign. Look for something with the potential to meet your needs well into the future (i.e. tools that will be supported and upgraded). Evaluate your software options from start to finish - initial cost is only a small part of it. For example, a cheap or free product might be fine, but if you do not have staff to support and run it, then you will have top rely on a new hire or on costly consultants in the long run, which is very hard to do in this environment. Talk to actual users of the software you are considering to get a realistic perspective on what it takes to make it work. Look at your site architecture from a user's perspective. Don't get caught up in internal terminology or the internal structure of your organization;it probably makes business sense but not Web browsing sense. Evaluate what you have and decide what works and what doesn't. Do some user testing. Create roles and responsibilities within your organization for building and maintaining the site with the expectation that everyone can contribute. Then, give people the freedom and encouragement to do so.

How are you evaluating the redesign's success?
Anecdotal comments and traffic mainly. We're also monitoring use of some of our site features and our social networking pages and groups. We've begun offering services (event registration) through our site to some of our constituent alumni groups - that's goodwill that is hard to measure.

April Fools Day roundup

In which I refuse to allow my distaste for April Fools Day spoil everyone else's fun.

• Google Topeka is always my first stop on 4/1.
• Better World Books introduces Better Mars Books
• Scientists discover gene and part of brain that make people gullible :: "a part of the brain called the inferior supra-credulus was unusually active in people with a tendency to believe horoscopes and papers
  invoking fancy brain scans"
• Where does the air that goes into Nike Air shoes come from?
• Even the U's own Alumni Association joined the fun with their news release on a new cold-hardy orange.

Please add your favorite April Fools links in the comments!

Interview: Electrical and Computer Engineering Web site

This is the seventh in a several-part
series of interviews with communicators who have redesigned or
updated their Web sites with the University templates. If you have
redesigned your site or have a site to suggest for these interviews, let us know.

In this edition: Forum member Paula Beck on the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Web site

What were your reasons for redesigning the site?
A dated look, out of date information, difficult to navigate, and a lack of branding compliance.

1. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering values the University of Minnesota brand and desires to be associated with the messages it carries. Our university brand delivers messages of a worldwide respected leader in research, a quality educational experience, and an organization that values and respects diversity.
2. The department's communications function became centralized with the creation of a communications coordinator position. We are now able to assure a Web site with continuous, up-to-date content maintenance and user-friendly, clean design.

What kind of user research or user testing did you do?

1. Viewed a number of University of Minnesota sites as well as sites from other major universities with Electrical and Communications departments.
2. Asked staff, faculty and students for suggestions.
3. Tested site with OIT staff, identified outside communications professionals, students, staff and faculty before the site went live.
4. Six months after the site was built, we surveyed users for feedback.
5. We wanted to do a usability testing; however the bid we received was well beyond our budget.

What factors went in to the organization of the site?

1. Identified our goals
2. Identified our key audiences. Designed site and wrote copy to meet their needs.
3. Built a site map and shared with staff, faculty, students and OIT staff asking for their suggestions.
4. Simplified site from previous site
• Built new site to be user-friend. Our old site was quite dense and difficult to use.
• Deleted redundancy and duplication of information. Rather than carry pages and pages of information available on other University sites, we linked directly those sites.

How did you think about the visual design of your site within the context of the University brand?
Goal was to assure we looked like University of Minnesota. We complied with all brand standards: header footer templates, the fonts, the linking styles, etc. We chose UMContent because of the vast support provided from OIT and its ease of use.

What was the biggest challenge, and how did you get past it?
The biggest challenge was the actual coding to build the site. We hired a member of the OIT team to do the XHTML coding and design aspects in our pages. (Not all communications professionals are computer coders as well.) OIT provided bids which fit into our budget and provided professional work in a timely fashion with quality work. With complete confidence, I recommend them. (Contact Michael Dunham for a bid.)

Initially, I took some of the University's  programming classes but realized it would take me too long to accomplish the immediate goal of creating a new web site as soon as we could. I was not an accomplished coder and the University had professionals to provide that skill.

How did you manage the project and keep it on track?
I worked with OIT and we developed a timeline. They developed pages and I worked on content. I loaded content on UMContent. OIT would test and then loaded the site to a non-public version for staff and faculty to test. Then we went live. The project was done on time within our timeline.

How are you evaluating the site's success?
Google Analytics - It's great for showing trends and what pages are accessed most often. The demographics are helpful as well. The reports are easy to use. Drill-down details are available. We also survey users.

What did you learn from the process?
It's great to have professionals on our team like OIT staff.
It's great to have collaborative department colleagues ready and willing to help.
It's great to have a supportive supervisor who understands the department's needs.