Carla Almaraz: How about a portal?

• 13 May 2008
• David McKelvey

Here’s another recent comment regarding the redesign from Carla Almaraz which I’ve excerpted:

“Here’s my $0.04 (allows for inflation). My biggest grumble is that the entire school website is directed at an external audience. I’ve been told that the reason for this is that ‘people search for things.’ Trying to find a department is next to impossible, especially if you don’t know the formal name of the department. If we just had a single portal to navigate to all the internal departments, that would be so helpful.”

Carla, thanks for recognizing that the external orientation of the website is not likely to change — after all, we need to make the site the most friendly to those who have the least knowledge of us, our organization and our taxology. While a good website architecture can help solve the simple problem of identifying and navigating to offices and departments (and I expect to have that post redesign), your suggestion of creating a space where you would be able to find all the things in which you are interested is also on the table.

And now, I’ll make an important distinction that your email touches indirectly. You’ll note I didn’t use the word Portal with a big “P,” or even portal with a small “p,” because like content management system (CMS), they can mean so many different things.

At this point, we are not considering firing up a huge piece of Portal software that intends to be everything to everyone. We are very seriously considering creating a personal space (or spaces) where you would be able to find links, news, and other information directed at specific “internal” or “community” audiences and where you might be able to customize the page to your needs. How this will be designed and deployed is yet to be seen, but we see the need and think it will help everyone navigate through the site far more easily.

Filed Under

• Information Design
• Redesign