Library Web Services continues to work on preparing our site for the SharePoint migration as we emerge from the research phase of the project and begin implementing changes.
The Libraries’ Web Advisory Committee (WAC) just completed its first report on prioritizing changes to our existing site prior to migration, which it submitted the the Libraries’ Administrative Council for approval. The report was generated from discussions that WAC members had after soliciting feedback from their respective units within the library. Fortunately, there were no major surprises, as much of the issues cited had been identified during user testing last year. And, in fact, Web Services already has an action plan in place for many of these. An example was the lack of linkages between some of our “buried content” like our digital image collections and the homepage.
Still, there were many new issues that the librarians brought to the table, which speaks to how important it has been to get everyone involved from across the library. As I’ve noted before, each unit in the library deals with unique user needs and services. As such, individual librarians are much more familiar with how a given web page should present information, services and tools to users.
Once approved by the ADs, the WAC prioritization report will guide what work goes first over the coming month, so that we can deliver a much cleaner version to the EM&M SharePoint team in July.
Meanwhile, those parts of the site that are getting makeovers, namely Special Collections, now have wireframes and work to build them is about to begin.
Work on Special Collections is worth noting in detail since it is the largest part of our website in terms of pages they occupy and since they were long-overdue for a major overhaul. Early this year, I began working with Special Collections to design a new task-oriented architecture for them. This work on Special Collections has been highly detailed, consisting of heruistic analysis, staff interviews, web analytics, pesona generation and content analysis. Unfortunately, time did not allow for direct user testing, so we had to rely on what our two web analytics tools, Crazy Egg and Google Analyitics, could provide…along with what years of staff experience said about what users wanted.
Last week, I presented recommendations to Special Collections baed on a synthesis of all our months of work and a wireframe is now ready for their approval. To boil it down to a sentence, the new Special Collections pages will be reoriented to match the actual tasks and expertise of their online users through the use of contemporary technologies and web conventions. Our plan is to have these new pages live by next month.