redesigning lclark.edu

October 2007

Assessment

As I’ve mentioned before, the primary step we are undertaking in the redesign is to assess our website in all its aspects so that we can determine the best course moving forward. To this end, we will be hiring one or more consulting firms to give us good advice about what they think our strengths and weaknesses are in light of our goals. While this list is by no means fully inclusive, here are the major elements we will expect them to address:

  1. back-end systems: do we have the right mix of hardware, software, skill-sets, and training?
  2. trillium: what future does our cms have?
  3. information architecture: how should we alter our information architecture to better standardize it across the entire website?
  4. visual design: we need to make our website more compelling and bring it into alignment with the strategic marketing initiative, what should it look like?

As part of the process we will also be specifically asking the consultant to interview representatives from many of the major constituencies across, and outside of campus, from prospective students to alumni, students, faculty and staff from each college, and college leadership. And the design process must include usability studies to make sure that our next website is easy to use.

Dan Terrio, Tom Krattenmaker and I have formed an ad hoc committee to put together a list of potential consultants, based on past work and the references provided by other institutions that have also undergone this process. With Dan and Tom’s oversight, I will be writing a Request For Information that will be sent to our short list of consultants capable of handling this level of work.

We are still in the investigatory stages, so it’s too soon to report further now, but I’ll report more in the coming weeks.

Filed Under

Make the whale happy; post a comment.

UC Davis CMS Survey

This is a very interesting survey:

Today, the Requirements and Evaluation committee of the UC Davis Web CMS initiative posted results from an online survey of campuses completed last month.

The survey was conducted to collect comprehensive data about the adoption and use of Web content management systems among institutions of higher education…

Filed Under

3 people have already made the whale happy; but who couldn’t be happier?(Go ahead, make a comment…)

Welcome

Welcome to the New Media blog. Noah, Robb and I began this blog as a space where we can share our progress, answer questions, and respond to comments on the web site redesign that we are embarking upon in conjunction with Information Technology. While we expect to be your primary authors, we hope to bring in members of IT as well.

We are just beginning the planning process for a redesign that will undoubtedly occupy us for a number of the coming months, but if you’re interested, we do have some basic terminology and plans already available in this blog.

Please — do make comments publicly here, as you may find others share your feelings, or email us directly if you wish to share a thought privately. That said, we are seeking to make this process as open and transparent as possible. (This site is world-viewable by the way.) And, while we are experts in the deployment and management of web resources and content, we cannot make appropriate decisions regarding features and functions without your input.

We look forward to the discussion.

Thanks,

David W. McKelvey
Director of New Media
Public Affairs and Communicationsmckelvey@lclark.edu

Filed Under

One person has made the whale happy; will you?(Go ahead, make a comment…)

Blogging Software? Why not Trillium?

We are utilizing blogging software to manage this discussion. By now, I suspect most people understand the concepts and functions surrounding a blog, and in fact on a small scale, blogging software can be a replacement for a content management system (CMS), which is what Trillium is, in that both assist in the management of web content.

So the question that perhaps strikes you is why did we not build this site in Trillium, if it’s a CMS and we know it inside and out? Practically speaking, while Trillium is good at many things, it does not handle the automated functions involved in blogging and podcasting without a significant amount of work. We were looking to create this informational space quickly and without much fuss — this software was the fastest means to this end.

Further, it utilizes open standards for the storage of its content, so if we choose another product, even the future Trillium, into which to move this all this at some later date, it will be a simple rather than complex task. For want of a better mantra, it is as simple as that old saw your grandparent might have taught you, “Use the right tool for the job.”

Separately, we are in fact at a crossroads with Trillium and are beginning the assessment process which will take us into a complete rebuild of Trillium, or away from it to some other CMS product. New Media is also currently building a new news and podcasting site with the same software for Public Affairs and Communications; it will give us good opportunities to test and identify features and functions important for any future CMS software.

Filed Under

One person has made the whale happy; will you?(Go ahead, make a comment…)

Web Site Redesign

As part of the implementation of Lewis & Clark’s strategic communications initiative, the web site is scheduled for a redesign. This will be a major undertaking by Public Affairs and Communications, Information Technology, and all of the site editors currently using Trillium.

We are just now beginning the planning stages for this redesign. To give you some sense as to the process involved, we have a rough time-line of a number of months, most likely approaching a year. The length is a result of and will be affected by in-depth assessments of the current and future web needs.

We will begin with an assessment of the Lewis & Clark’s CMS needs, with a subsequent and somewhat simultaneous review the visual design/styles and of the information architecture. During the testing and implementation phases, usability analysis will be conducted as we proceed.

In short, it will be a measured process, so that we have every opportunity to make the best decisions for the enhancement of our web presence and help us bring it into agreement with the strategic communications platform.

Filed Under

Make the whale happy; post a comment.