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September 2003 | more web and 'net
Satish Rao is working on a web project at Texas State University San
Marcos, and asked:
One of the challenges I anticipate is the fight for real-estate
on the homepage. I am interested in knowing if you all encountered this
situation where various depts/divisions were vying for links on the
home page. If you did, how did you deal with it?
At the Australian university where I do similar work in a central Web
Centre, broad consultation is important. This university has a clearly
stated commitment to 'collegiality' in its management style. Many people
feel they have a stake in the university's central web site, and that
they have something useful or compelling to say about it. Web Centre staff
spend a lot of time going to other people's web committee meetings, listening
and occasionally talking to them.
At the same time, it is important to have active, effective project sponsorship.
We made a conscious effort in late 2002 to engage senior staff--the Vice-Chancellor
(President) and his peers, and deans of faculties--in the decision-making
processes for the central web site. Organisationally, there are only two
managers between the Web Centre and the Vice-Chancellor, and they were
our project sponsors. We therefore had good (political) access and support
at a very senior level in the organisation.
We started our redevelopment project by articulating some basic principles
about web development: user-focused structures and content, usability,
accessibility and so on.
We then used a combination of types of evidence to support these principles:
-
a survey of the home pages of 43 universities in Australia, Canada,
USA, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The survey identified common
information architecture and features, and looked for distinguishing
characteristics that set an institution apart from its peers;
-
a review of all the brochures, booklets and other publications we
could find that were produced by this university and its faculties,
departments, schools and centres. In this exercise, we looked for
common design elements, marketing messages and audience sectors. This
gave us clues to use in developing personas for the next study...
-
...which was a quick-and-dirty usability study of our old web site,
using 'personas' to complete common tasks such as finding course/program
information or a campus map. The personas were based on demographic
and other data about our current and prospective students, staff and
other potential web users.
-
analysis of search engine traffic to identify highly sought-after
pages (this also helped with writing metadata for some of the new
pages);
-
and a review of usability literature, eg the various Nielsen Norman
Group reports on PR usability and home page design and content. We
also have a small library in our office of books on usability, web
development, corporate communication and management, and those were
helpful too.
When we presented draft designs and information architectures to our
stakeholders, we were able to quote these various reviews and reports.
If all else failed, we asked the stakeholders to imagine themselves as
one of our 'user personas' (such as Nick, 21, postgraduate student in
law and history, looking for a supervisor for his research project; or
35-year-old Kate who works part time in an academic department and is
worried about walking to her car at night).
Despite our best efforts and advice, in the end we had to compromise
on some things. We added those to our list of "stuff to revisit in
the next iteration", and carried on with the project.
A month after finishing that particular project, we revisited the list
of stuff. After another couple of months' consulting, reworking and testing,
we launched the next version of the site. Several of the things we couldn't
do in the first project were fixed in the second project. Some are being
held over for the third project, which will happen in the first half of
2004.
Always remember that web development should be iterative. What you can't
do now, you may be able to do in six or 12 months.
|
2004 flipsocks:
17 Dec: the
sock has flipped
10 Dec: anything anywhere any time
3 Dec: instant
flattery
26 Nov: the steamroller
of branding
19 Nov: fried
v rice
5 Nov: the page
with no name
29 Oct: and then
there were none
22 Oct: filled
with naughty laughter
15 Oct: get
souls and disconcert the public
8 Oct: ooh,
aah, ooh
1 Oct: pinch
and a punch
24 Sep: design
is the new art
17 Sep: footsteps
of Aeneas
10 Sep: slow
art, viral aesthetic
3 Sep: I
can see your house from here
27 Aug: forever
blowing bubbles
20 Aug: jargon
for the digital age
13 Aug: beautiful
plumage, the Norwegian blue
6 Aug: brokenated
terribility
23 Jul: Alice
underground
16 Jul: color-coded
2 Jul: for
so long treated as nouns
25 Jun: looking
for love, echidna-style
18 Jun: joy-to-stuff
ratio
11 Jun: fun's
fun but a girl can't dance all night
4 Jun: pink dinosaur
28 May: two
people every minute
21 May: incompitnce [sic]
14 May: zygomatic smile
5 May: mailbox
30 Apr: bananaguard
23 Apr: mmmmmWAH!
15 Apr: playtime
8 Apr: googlewhack
2 Apr: we
wish to inform you...
18 Mar: daffy dills
12 Mar: echo
chamber
9 Jan: refund profologies
Also on this site:
about this site
home page
articles:
who
is geoffrey ebert?
testing
for the fun factor
chicken
at the (higher education) crossroads
crawford's theory of interactivity
froghunting
home-page
real-estate wars
the eagle
has landed
listmania:
must-reads
for web people
recent reads
pop-culture
quotes
neology:
they shoulda been words
recipe:
lemon and
rosemary risotto
reviews:
Written
In Blood by Chris Lawson
The
Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams
Without whom (web):
frankenstein
journal (Chris)
tbn97 (Troy)
webster's encyclopedia [sic]
science playwiths
(Peter)
neroliwesley.com.au (Neroli)
Fraser
Jonathan
Maverick IT network consultants
(Rick)
Look! There's a castle!
(Brent)
Cairns Corporation (Gerald)
Homosapien Books (Julie and
Bruce)
Southern Sky Watch
(Ian)
Panda's Thumb (Ian again)
ABC Science-Matters
(official)
science-matters (unofficial)
chisig
Bovios
Disinfo.com (Alex Burns)
Lee Battersby
Little Malop Gallery
Digest of Usability Resources and
News (Dey)
WooWooWoo (Andrew)
Without whom (also):
Ramona P Lovechild
Dombardo
Katherine with a K
Katherine (no relation)
Catherine
Teresa
Corey
Claire
Claire (no relation)
Helsbels
Iain
Toby and Jann
Andrew
Paul, Warren, Dr K and The New Reality
Stephen
Tania
Trevor
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