Web Project Design Essentials

The Web Project Design document could be one of the most important documents in the whole web project managment toolkit. That's because it more than anything focuses on your audience and why you are developing your web project.

The site or application is for someone, to do something, or to know something. How they get that information or how they complete that task is outlined in the web project design document. The web project design will reflect:

• what it is your users are there for
• the colour scheme
• the functionality
• the information architecture and navigation
• the wireframe and layout
• the corporate or sub-brand colour palette and imaging

It's all there in one tidy document.

The designer uses it to create the graphical layout, the information architect uses it to develop the navigation, the content specialist uses it to guide content creation in the wireframe, and it becomes an important proof of approval when those nagging questions come up 2, 3, 4, and 6 months later - who picked the colours?

The Essentials to Adopting a new CMS and Self-Publishing

One of the biggest hurdles after implementing a CMS in organizations, is preparing for the rollout and user adoption by self-publishers who have little or no HTML or coding skills. To increase internal user adoption by non-coders, your goal should be easy,  intuitive self-publishing. The easiest ways to do this is to strip down the admin interface to the bare essentials, after that, create a really terrific and engaging user tutorial. Doing both will reduce the never-to-be-underestimated "intimidation factor" of learning new software and processes.

Of course there are other needed requirements to adopting a new CMS like creation of a user support site, coaching, email support and of course a great CMS to begin with, but the two essentials for adopting and using a new CMS internally are:

- a user-friendly, intuitive CMS admin interface
- a user-friendly, engaging, step-by-step CMS user tutorial

What's the right CMS for your organization?

That depends on a number of factors like:

What Business Are You In?

If you're a large and dynamic multimedia company with content-rich productions being streamed on the web, then your CMS will need back the backbone and flexibility to deliver media rich productions in a variety of formats.

If you're a large information rich company that produces a variety of research and data, then your CMS will need to have the flexibility for top-notch metadata and easily create user-friendly URLs to optimize your content for search engines (SEO) for users to easily find your specific information searching in Google or other search engines.

How Deep are Your Pockets?

A simple CMS such as Wordpress costs next to nothing and offers Web2.0 functionality like easy updates, instant publishing, and plug-ins to a variety of formats to extend site functionality.

Open Source CMS like Drupal and Joomla are free of charge for the software, but the services component to develop and add modules has to be factored in. It gets more expensive depending on the complexity of the requirement. Free is not free unless used "out of the box" - and most sites and users want some form of customization. The good news is they can be deployed quickly reducing total cost of ownership, they are scalable, and a variety of modules can be added to extend functionality to meet any requirement.

Enterprise class CMS's such as Interwoven Teamsite, Sharepoint, Oracle are very expensive due to the cost of licensing software and cost of services, integration and configuration. Some can take years to deploy properly. And some still require HTML coders after all that.

Then there are the mid-range CMS offerings like Sitecore and HotBanana. Software is licensed and needs an integrator to deliver but they can be very viable solutions depending on your business needs.

Check out:

• CMSWatch for a list of vendors and CMS classes.
• My other posts on CMS best practices.

User-centric, Task-focused websites

Here is an example of a brand new CLF2.0 government website that I lead the design and development on - designed for the user with a task-focus:  http://www.buyandsell.gc.ca

User Feedback on Task-Focused Websites

Thought I would post some feedback to validate how much user's appreciate it when their needs are reflected on new and redeveloped websites that are developed from a task-focused user's perspective: 

       "I can already tell that this site was built with the user experience in mind and not the usual "government-eese".

        "Such a website is long overdue and much appreciated from a buyer/user-perspective. This will no doubt save time and energy in having to search through various pages/sites and contribute to more efficiencies."

Check out this example of a user-centric, task-focused website:  http://www.buyandsell.gc.ca

How to create a task-focused website

Task-focused websites are relatively new but absolutely needed to revolutionize a user's experience. Think about it, if you're an organization or business, people come to your site for a specific reason. Generally they are not there to browse, they don't drop in just to check it out - unless they are your competition!

Users and clients go to a website for a specific reason - they are there to find something specific or do something specific. These find's and do's are tasks and for this we create task journeys to help them get the information and complete the task online right within the website.

To determine what are the "top tasks" I look at all the available research: web metrics, search logs, e-surveys, consultations and interviewing help desk and call centre staff. This has to be done for each audience so that you can determine the top 5 tasks for each audience. There will be more tasks - but if you cover the top 5 you've covered the main reasons why users visit your site.

From there it is a matter of developing "linking journeys" for each of the tasks. This is to guide users step-by-step through each of the directions or points of information needed to successfully complete the task.

Sometimes that task is to complete a form and submit something, and sometimes that task is simply to find specific information like a specific contact to address a specific problem.

On your homepage, or a relevant Level 1 audience page or subject page you want to make it easy for your users to get to the task. Create a section called "I want to..." and then list the 5 tasks with task journey links.

Your clients will thank you. My next posts will be feedback from clients validating the importance of task-based websites.

Fast track to Web Channel strategy learnings: 2010

It's been awhile since I posted last. Life and work took me off and away. And now I'm back.

Next week I release a new CMS and government of Canada website that's filled with best practices for user experience based on user tasks and usability.

And this is the first time that I have worked with all of the winning conditions:  a budget, open source CMS software (Drupal), a smart, talented and dedicated team: specialists in web design, information architecture, content, SEO, and importantly, a client who sees the absolute potential of the web to transform business process and operations.

It's a unique site the hails the beginning of user task websites. My next few entries will be based on this, so stay tuned...