FHU's Website Redesign Project

May 25, 2009 7:00 PM

Welcome to the web redesign blog!

This site will be the primary means of communication to help keep you informed about the redesign project.

Beginning February 16th, a 26-week project plan was put in place to not only update our current website design but to also update our content management system. There are 3 phases to this project plan, each detailed in the "Phase Details" post.

The primary focuses for the new FHU website will be:

• Relationship Dimension	(more personal stories, images, videos)
• Navigation & Design	(an improved look and interface)
• Technical Details	(improved functionality of the site)
• Aesthetic Appropriateness	(ensuring each page follows our style guide)
• Content of the Site	(easy-to-find, consistent information)

Our hope is that you will find this blog to be informative as we continue our work on the new website.

Michael Plyler	Jonathan Newberry
Webmaster	Web Designer

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Phase Details

May 25, 2009 6:45 PM

In an effort to maintain communication and transparency with our web redesign project plan, a brief description of each

phase of our deployment can be found below.

Each Phase keeps in mind the major target audiences in our Website Purpose Statement:

The Freed-Hardeman University website exists to create a central location of information and ideas built to enhance relationships, inform our audience, and involve a diverse community, primarily future and current students, alumni and friends of the university, but also faculty, staff, administrators of FHU, the churches of Christ, and others interested in the university. This will be done through clear, persistent messages that encourage participation from our university community, allow audience feedback and opinions, and provide full accessibility to all of our users.

Phase 1: Future & Current Students; Alumni & Friends

Phase 2: Faculty, Staff and Administrators of FHU

Phase 3: The churches of Christ and others with university interest

Phase 1: February 16, 2009 - June 1, 2009

Research and Planning

Analyze surveys (Future Students, Faculty/Staff, Current Students, Parents, and Alumni)
Complete Guidelines (Web Mission Statement, Style Guide, Web Content Criteria Guide)
Research for Navigation
Planning: Core Functionality (content management system)
Release Redesign Blog

Design/Development

Design: Information Architecture (site map, identify content areas/providers)
Development: System and Site Components / Modules
Design main page, landing pages, sub page templates (3-5 designs for usability testing)
Server Deployment Plan

Policy

Approval Process for Adding Content
Style Guide (SG) and Web Content Criteria Guide (WCCG) completed and published
Form Content Review Committee (purpose is to make recommendations based on SG and WCCG)

Implementation

Build Master Pages, Editor Groups, and Add Styling
Information Architecture
Navigation Controls
Content / Feature Content (Phase 1 Deployment)

Usability Testing

Future Students, Parents, Faculty/Staff, and Current Students
Analyze/Review Usability Tests - make necessary adjustments

Pre-deployment Plan: Test and Finalize

Deployment

Improvements/changes/updates from usability test and focus groups
Stabilizing and Monitoring (internal testing)
Restage web servers
Launch new website

Important Notes:

(1) Due to the timeline we are looking at (June 1 for a new website rollout) there will be some areas of the website that may not have content on the new website during the first phase.

If an area doesn't directly effect our Phase 1 audience, it will be deployed during Phase 2.

Here is a list of identified current areas that will be effected*:

Advisory Board (private) On-Campus Healthcare

Archives & Special Collections Policy

Associates Recording

TV40 Bible Bookstore

Secure (feature content) Instructional Technology

Jobs Grants

Lectureship areas of Human Resources

News Institutional Research

Chapel University Bookstore

Bible Bookstore Purchasing

OMUR

Advisory Board (private)	On-Campus Healthcare
Archives & Special Collections	Policy
Associates	Recording
TV40	Bible Bookstore
Secure (feature content)	Instructional Technology
Jobs	Grants
Lectureship	areas of Human Resources
News	Institutional Research
Chapel	University Bookstore
Bible Bookstore	Purchasing
OMUR

*If time permits, these areas will be included in the Phase 1 timeframe.

(2) Beginning the first or second week of May, we will unveil the new website design to the campus.

We will also hold a few Q & A sessions to address any questions our campus community might have about the new website.

Phase 2: June 2, 2009 - July 3, 2009

Completion of Phase 2 Planning

Completion of Content Areas / Feature Content

CMS Training for Content Editors

Phase 3: July 6, 2009 - August 7, 2009

Completion of Phase 3 Planning

Continue building our Information Architecture based on WCCG

Future Planning (Phase 4)

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Week 15

May 25, 2009 6:21 PM

Week 15.

Last week of Phase 1.

Items to note this week:

• working to get all "essential" areas to a state of completion for initial release
• preparing to deploy the site to our live web servers
• planned web outage (May 28 5pm - May 29 noon)
• training for content editors, slightly pushed back a few weeks in June
• Phase 2 and 3 blog posts

We are working to finish up what we know we can release for the Phase 1 deployment.

Due to resource limitations, this has been an exhausting task. Several areas of our website will not be included in the Phase 1 deployment. This should not be a surprise, however, since we planned for a phased approach for our website update.

Planned web outtage

On Thursday, May 28th, beginning at 5pm and going through noon the next day, Friday, May 29th, there will be a planned website outage in order to help facilitate our Phase 1 deployment.

If you visit our website during this time, you will receive a reminder message that our website will be "unavailable" temporarily.

This outage will not effect any websites except www.fhu.edu/web.fhu.edu (our main site).

Student email, Faculty/Staff email, Blackboard, IQweb, etc will not be effected.

We apologize for this planned outage, but this is a necessary part of our new site deployment plan.

Phase 2 - 3; Content Editor Training

Once Phase 1 has been completed, we'll post a revised Phase 2 and Phase 3 deployment plan. Each area of the site that will be included in these phases will be listed and expected "go live" dates will be given.

We will also include training schedules for content editors with the new Phase plans. Most of our content editors have not changed, so you will also be receiving emails in regards to your areas live release and potential training times.

Content editors will not be given access to their areas until they have completed the 1 hour training session. This session will allow you to become familiar with the new CMS, see our new style guide, and allow explanation for our new approaches to publishing content on the FHU website. In addition to these sessions, we will be creating video tutorials so that content editors have references to the items covered in the training sessions.

Our first training sessions will probably occur the third or fourth week in June and continue until all editors have had a chance to be trained.

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Week 14

May 25, 2009 6:15 PM

Week 14.

Our site is coming together. I must say, it looks good. We can't wait until you see the Phase 1 deployment and get to check our some of the things that are in store for the new FHU site.

Items to note this week:

• content, and then more content
• components being finalized
• sleep deprivation

We've been really busy this week working on the site. We still have much more work to do.

I just realized how hard it is to keep up with a weekly blog on website development... well, back to work on the site.

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Week 13

May 16, 2009 7:26 PM

Week 13.

Two weeks to go before our Phase 1 launch.

We've been working very hard to make this first part of our phased launch.

Remember, the first phase of the site goes live June 1. The second and third phases following will bring us to August 7th when the new website will be complete.

Items to note this week:

• content from areas on campus not coming like planned
• restructure of Academics area
• working on Academic content - getting help from IT

Content

If you've been keeping up with the blog, you know about many of the changes that our planned for our new website. As we update/migrate from our old CMS to the new, IT and OMUR are "completing" all areas of the site before turning over editing control to our content providers around campus.

Several of you have asked why we've taken this approach. The answer is simple. We are trying to ensure that our new website meets the mission of the university and services our major target audiences. We want to make sure our new site is readable and that content is easy to find.

If you remember, some of our focuses on the new site are:

• Relationship Dimension
• Navigation & Design
• Technical Details
• Aesthetic Appropriateness
• Content of the Site

The next few weeks are crucial to ensure that we have a successful Phase 1 launch. Many of you have been very helpful and provided content. We thank you for this.

Other areas, however, have not met deadlines and made it difficult to include their area in the Phase 1 launch. We will include this content before the end of Phase 3, August 7th.

Academics restructure

One of the main areas that we've targeted to improve with our new site is Academics.

Our goal has been to try and ensure that content within each school of study is consistent, easy-to-find, and presents web visitors with the information that they are looking for. In order to accomplish this, we have included the following in each area:

• a small section describing a given major
• list of all majors within an area
• list of minors within an area
• list of all degree requirements
• list of all course descriptions
• contact information for faculty and staff within a given area

Content management help from IT

Jonathan and I have had many things to complete with this new release of the FHU website. We have received much help this week from the IT department in helping to migrate web content.

Greg Maples, Jonathan Ray, Tim Heath, Jeff Dove, and Eddie Anderson have lent some of their time to help with the numerous tasks that we still have to complete our Phase 1 deployment.

Thank you guys, your help has been invaluable.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

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