March 24, 2005
Please feel free to invite your colleagues from your or another city/county if you think it would benefit them to be part of our group!
Location:
City of Overland Park
(Meetings alternate monthly between MARC in Kansas City and the City of Overland
Park, KS.)
Attendance
City of Belton, MO
-
Dot Watkins
City of Kansas City, MO
- Rich Lovett and John Sims
City of Overland Park, KS
- Chris Audano, Randy Ellis and Susan Waters
City of Shawnee,
KS - Sonya Fendorf, Albert Holting, Roman Madrigal, and Marsha Toler
Jackson
County, MO - Dan Davis and Joe Tanner
Johnson County, KS
- Sarah Handgraaf, Pat Loriaux, Michael Morris, Anthony Oropeza, Aaron Shettleroe,
Sonia Smith, Karen Sorensen, Kevin Whelan and Brett Williamson
Lawrence Public
Library - Karen Davis
Mid-America Regional Council - Julie Wittman
and Barbara Hensley
Web site redesign discussion
Three
initial handouts summarized the Web redesign process. Attendees
agreed that function, such as a "tight" navigation system, was
more important than a colorful image.
In or Out-of-House
Conversation
shifted to working with consultants. What are the pros and cons versus
relying upon internal personnel? It may be wise to use several consultants:
one for look and feel, another to “think outside the box” or
yet another for various stages of the development. It is not uncommon,
however, for internal personnel to modify and improve what a consultant
has created. Money can be saved by staying in-house, at least partially
if not completely.
It's recommended to create and work with an advisory committee such as an Internet policy group. It could save on some frustration, later. Many people who have the potential to donate good ideas will not give feedback until a site goes live. Having a member from each major section of your organization on an advisory committee will help build a consensus.
Gather a List of “Best Practices” from
Your Best Resources
In any case, research! Determine at
least five key points about your site. Research can include attending a local
college and taking a class related to Web site production, analyzing your site's
traffic, creating a focus group, asking your switchboard personnel for questions
most frequently asked, and assembling visitor feedback from your present web
site (See www.alistapart.com for their feedback
feature at bottom of each page; very cool!).
Function First When Designing a Template
Design
2-3 templates. Soliciting samples from a listserv may be of help. As indicated
earlier, determine a functional navigation system. Select a design that
will allow for expansion. Ongoing maintenance is another issue to seriously
consider.
Branding, ideally, should be a “top down” design. This assures the visitor is engaging in a section of a larger site. Both branding and domain names issues vary according to circumstance buta usually involves cost effectiveness. This could also be a good time to share a draft with an attorney for any legal considerations.
Accessibility
Try LIFT Text Transcoder
from UsableNet ( http://www.usablenet.com/ ).
It is a
server-based tool that generates a customizable "text-only" view
of a website. You don't need to generate, store and maintain the text-only
version of your website: LIFT Text Transcoder does it. See
an example at the Lawrence, KS, Public Library site, http://transcoder.usablenet.com/tt/http://www.lawrence.lib.ks.us/ .
Production
Determine a
schedule. Development time various from situation to situation whether it
is the whole site that is updated all at once or perhaps one department at
a time.
Choose the right tools for the job. HTML documents generated by MS Word are out! The code that is automatically generated is bulky and causes documents to load slowly.
Content
Remember that writing
content for the Web is different from writing for print. Internet surfers
skim. Content must be short and concise.
Content management systems
Online
collaborative environments such as Macromedia’s Contribute and Microsoft’s
SharePoint are worth considering. (MAGWeb will be dedicating a meeting
to content management systems in the fall, if not sooner. Meanwhile, take
a took at Macromedia’s
info (http://www.macromedia.com/software/contribute/ )
and our own MAGWeb minutes detailing Microsoft's demonstration of SharePoint
Solutions, http://www.kcmagweb.org/minutes/4-2004minutes.cfm .)
Handouts
1. How to Plan an Effective Redesign
http://www.sdcn.org/webworks/redesign/plan.htm
“Once you have assessed user needs and related considerations, you need to plan your redesign. The following are guidelines to be followed before, during and after making a decision to carry out a redesign. The set of guidelines below covers managerial skills as well as the process.”
2. Pitfalls of Web Redesign
http://www.soho-it-goes.com/resources/articles/website-redesign.html
• Redesigning for redesigns sake
• Not taking advantage of your current users
• Ignoring competition
• Forgetting the stats
• Not being visionary
• Not allowing for a thorough planning phase
• Endless tweaking
• Not documenting as you go
3. Website Redesign (4 parts)
http://www.universitywebmaster.com/redesign1.html
“…four-part series which will ease your task.”
Part 1: The first step is planning
Part 2: Building the new site
Part 3: Mapping your old site to the new one
Part 4: Cutover to the new site
4. Less is More – Redesigning a Local Government Web Site for 2005+
Karen Sorensen shares some tips and references after recently redesigning www.jcw.org. Her handout is posted in MAGWeb’s archive, http://www.kcmagweb.org/archives/frommembers.cfm.
More resources, books, and links mentioned:
1. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity -- by Jakob Nielsen
2. Don't Make Me Think: A Common-Sense Approach
to Web Usability
by Steve Krug
3.http://www.waybackmachine.org
-A library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. See how your web site looked several years ago.
4.http://www.alistapart.com/stories/alternate
-Understand alternate style sheets and make them work in all browsers.
Other Business
1.
Roman Madrigal won this month’s drawing for
Kingdom Under Fire, a software game from Microsoft.
2. Government Webmasters Conference is scheduled for Sept. 22 and 23 in Denver. Registration is $175. It’s advised to register early because there may not be enough hotel rooms. Visit www.governmentwebmasters.org for more information.
Upcoming Meeting Topics
Next
month’s topic will be what you
should know about HTML vs. XML vs. XHTML. Presented by Dan Davis of Jackson
County, MO.
Next Meeting
Thursday, April
21, 2005, 10 a.m. at the Overland Park Police Department
Meeting minutes: Karen Lynne Sorensen, Johnson County Wastewater.