Web Content Strategy
The core of the web content strategy group (Beckie Dashiell , Katie Westbrook, Rachel Cox and Jackie Sipes has already done a tremendous amount of work. David Lacy , Nancy Turner and myself participate in weekly meetings and provide oversight for this process. For each service on our list, the group is going through the following steps:
Collocate all of the information that currently exists for that service in the following places: 1) the cumulative services document, 2) the current Drupal website, 3) LibGuides and LibAnswers.
Draft a service description and note any outstanding questions, also taking into consideration content that would be better placed in a space, group or policy description.
Meet with stakeholders for each service
For most of the services, the content for 24 of the services have been collocated. Six of those services have been drafted. Meetings with library stakeholders will in the coming weeks.
Web Design
The web design core team made up of Rachel Cox, Gabe Galeson, Chris Doyle, Jackie Sipes, Jennifer Anton and I also meet weekly recently reviewed the design for the events and exhibits page, including a stakeholder review meeting with Sara Wilson and Kaitlyn Sembroski. Currently the team is reviewing designs for a ‘Contact us’ page, the mini homepage/landing pages for individual libraries/groups within the library and the primary navigation. This week, we met with Kristina DeVoe and Sarah Araujo to discuss the ‘Contact us’ page and received good feedback on how to refine this page. In the coming weeks, the User Experience team will conduct user testing on specific elements of the website header.
I am working on a task that will be both useful for the content strategy and the design and that is an information architecture.
Site Development and Infrastructure
Chad Nelson, Steven Ng and Chris Doyle continue a steady pace of work on the underlying technical infrastructure of the site, building out the entity models, data feeds and implementing the front end design. Much of the infrastructure work also includes building underlying elements into the site that will be make it robust and aide in future development.
The next major visible step in terms of infrastructure is moving the new site to a place where it can be more easily viewed by a wider audience. This move will also allow us to connect it more seamlessly with Library Search.
Content
On January 10, 2019, Jackie Sipes, Rachel Cox and I led several content stakeholders through a workshop on best practices for writing for the web. This workshop also included some time to work on actual content for the website. While this workshop was a useful time for clarifying some aspects of the web content, it also brought to light some confusion over the process and individual responsibilities
As a result, a small Web Content Strategy group has formed to oversee the content writing process. This group will gather extant content from Drupal, LibGuides, and the Cumulative Services working document we've been using thus far. They will review, refine and revise this content adhering to the best practices discussed at the workshop last week. Then, the content will be shared with stakeholders to gather feedback and discuss further.
The group will work with an eye towards unifying the descriptions of services offered across the different libraries and locations whenever possible. This not only streamlines the information, but also creates a more unified end-user experience.
This new web content strategy group is made up of the following individuals: Jackie Sipes, Beckie Dashiell, Rachel Cox, Katie Westbrook and Cynthia Schwarz with David Lacy and Nancy Turner ex officio as links to the LLC. Our first meeting is this coming Monday and we will meet every Monday until the work is done.
Design
A Core Design team also meets on a weekly basis to discuss question and items related to the website design. This team consists of Rachel Cox, Gabe Galson, Jennifer Anton, Chris Doyle, Jackie Sipes and Cynthia Schwarz. In the coming weeks, we will be discussing a “Contact us” page, and the primary navigation.
Sprints
This week, we finish our first sprint of 2019 for the website. On Monday we will start a new sprint. Each sprint for the next few months will focus on a particular are of the website that needs to be completed. The sprints and their respective focus are listed below:
Entity Models Jan 21-Feb 1: this sprint will focus on finishing anything related to the entity models; i.e. resources, services, policies, collections, etc.
Mini Homepages Feb 4 - Feb 15: this sprint will focus on filling out the “mini homepages” for various entities within the library. The current list of mini homepages includes Ambler, HSL, Scholars' Studio (DSC), Blockson and SCRC
Other pages, part 1 Feb 18 - Mar 1: In this sprint and the next, we will focus on any pages that do not fit into the content entity model that we’ve been working on up until now. While we want to has as much content in the model structure, we do recognize that not everything will fit.
Other pages, part 2 Mar 4 - Mar 15: A continuation of the previous sprint.
Also, sometime around mid-February to the beginning of March, we hope to have the new website available at librarybeta.temple.edu so that staff can more easily review changes and provide feedback on the site.