Help me make our websites not suck
February 16, 2013 1:21 PM Subscribe
I am now responsible for the content of several large websites. There is no CMS; I have to email updates to offshore contractors. The UX design is...not good. What workflow practices should I adopt to make the best of this situation? As a word person, not a visual designer, how can I equip myself with the necessary UX design and information architecture skills to nudge future versions of the websites towards actually meeting our users' needs?
I have assumed responsibility for the content of several large websites at work. I've managed web content before, but that was in direct collaboration with a UX designer and a developer who were highly responsive and worked under the Agile model. Working with them was a joy; we'd throw around ideas about what we'd like the site to do, they'd make a few pencil drawings and the next day new parts of the site would be built, ready for me to add content and for them to test and refine. It was amazing.
Now, I work for a charity which outsources its web design and development to an external company. The majority of the web team is offshore. There is no CMS. When I want to change something, I have to send an email describing precisely the changes I want. A different person responds each time. They don't really ask questions or make suggestions based on our needs; they just do what we tell them, for better or worse. After years of this workflow, the sites have a LOT of content but navigating them is a nightmare.
I have been tasked with reviewing the content of these websites and possibly overseeing a partial redesign. I need advice on staying sane without a CMS, but also on what skills I should equip myself with to actually make these sites better. Since I can't dump the web company, nor can I hire in an emergency UX designer or information architect, what should I learn now in order to have the best hope of ending up with websites that meet our users' needs?
I have assumed responsibility for the content of several large websites at work. I've managed web content before, but that was in direct collaboration with a UX designer and a developer who were highly responsive and worked under the Agile model. Working with them was a joy; we'd throw around ideas about what we'd like the site to do, they'd make a few pencil drawings and the next day new parts of the site would be built, ready for me to add content and for them to test and refine. It was amazing.
Now, I work for a charity which outsources its web design and development to an external company. The majority of the web team is offshore. There is no CMS. When I want to change something, I have to send an email describing precisely the changes I want. A different person responds each time. They don't really ask questions or make suggestions based on our needs; they just do what we tell them, for better or worse. After years of this workflow, the sites have a LOT of content but navigating them is a nightmare.
I have been tasked with reviewing the content of these websites and possibly overseeing a partial redesign. I need advice on staying sane without a CMS, but also on what skills I should equip myself with to actually make these sites better. Since I can't dump the web company, nor can I hire in an emergency UX designer or information architect, what should I learn now in order to have the best hope of ending up with websites that meet our users' needs?
Great advice from Ninjakins. I often work with people who have monolithic and totally unfocused websites, including quite a few charities, and almost every time there's a significant amount of disconnected and badly organised content. Everything had a reason for being created, but it's often either at odds with other parts of the site.
We do come at it from the perspective of a redesign, so we have the luxury of being able to reorganise how interaction with the site is performed. But content really has to come first, so break that side of things as much as possible.
posted by Magnakai at 2:03 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
We do come at it from the perspective of a redesign, so we have the luxury of being able to reorganise how interaction with the site is performed. But content really has to come first, so break that side of things as much as possible.
posted by Magnakai at 2:03 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Pick up a copy of Content Strategy for the Web...
Oh wow, THANK YOU! I'm a few pages into the e-book now and it describes my daily dilemmas so perfectly that I fear the author has been secretly watching me through a gap in the ceiling tiles. So...apparently I'm now a content strategist. (In addition to being the communications officer, media advisor, social media manager and general go-to person for all word-related problems). Oh, f**k.
I'm going to devour this book, but I could also use some real-world advice on how to fill this role with no UX or IA support, no CMS, and a web team which isn't really meeting our needs. My boss has given me carte blanche to "change the navigation", which in practice probably means I can change what the menu options say and which pages they link to, but not how they look on the page. I also intend to remove a lot of unnecessary content and rewrite whatever I keep.
I feel pretty unprepared, to be honest. What blogs should I read? Books? Online training modules? Short courses at General Assembly or the local community education centre? In what? I'm the first "word person" to touch the site in a long time, and I suspect the first with an inkling of interest in usability. I am not, however, an information architect or a UX designer, and my chances of getting the budget to hire such people are slim. Help me, MeFi! What do I do?
posted by embrangled at 4:13 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oh wow, THANK YOU! I'm a few pages into the e-book now and it describes my daily dilemmas so perfectly that I fear the author has been secretly watching me through a gap in the ceiling tiles. So...apparently I'm now a content strategist. (In addition to being the communications officer, media advisor, social media manager and general go-to person for all word-related problems). Oh, f**k.
I'm going to devour this book, but I could also use some real-world advice on how to fill this role with no UX or IA support, no CMS, and a web team which isn't really meeting our needs. My boss has given me carte blanche to "change the navigation", which in practice probably means I can change what the menu options say and which pages they link to, but not how they look on the page. I also intend to remove a lot of unnecessary content and rewrite whatever I keep.
I feel pretty unprepared, to be honest. What blogs should I read? Books? Online training modules? Short courses at General Assembly or the local community education centre? In what? I'm the first "word person" to touch the site in a long time, and I suspect the first with an inkling of interest in usability. I am not, however, an information architect or a UX designer, and my chances of getting the budget to hire such people are slim. Help me, MeFi! What do I do?
posted by embrangled at 4:13 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I know this isn't the most helpful thing to say, but...in this day and age, any "large website" that isn't built on a decent CMS is a dying swan. Figure out how to transition to a CMS and you'll be the hero. Don't, and you will just find yourself more and more frequently in unsatisfactory conversations with offshore developers. Not that the problem has anything to do with offshore developers per se--the problem is that you're not using a (good) CMS.
posted by bricoleur at 8:50 PM on February 16, 2013
posted by bricoleur at 8:50 PM on February 16, 2013
Nielsen Norman Group and Ask Tog are two places to start.
Also, how is your site accommodating for the blind and color blind?
posted by Sophont at 9:21 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also, how is your site accommodating for the blind and color blind?
posted by Sophont at 9:21 PM on February 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Sorry, I know this isn't the most helpful thing to say, but...in this day and age, any "large website" that isn't built on a decent CMS is a dying swan.
I know :/ I've said this to my managers many, many times but no action has been taken. The web company has been busy trying to stabilise a new and horrendously malfunctional database and it seems no one is in the mood to make further big changes.
Given that the thought of this company building us a CMS fills me with terror, is there a valid reason why a big, hulking, database full of legacy code can't just be bolted onto a Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress front end? If so, could an external designer do this with minimal cooperation from the company's web developers? Would this be a reasonable thing for me to demand?
The sites do not meet accessibility standards; it's pretty embarrassing. I want to fix that too.
Sorry for the thread sitting. This problem is so big that I'm honestly not even sure what questions I should be asking.
posted by embrangled at 10:11 PM on February 16, 2013
I know :/ I've said this to my managers many, many times but no action has been taken. The web company has been busy trying to stabilise a new and horrendously malfunctional database and it seems no one is in the mood to make further big changes.
Given that the thought of this company building us a CMS fills me with terror, is there a valid reason why a big, hulking, database full of legacy code can't just be bolted onto a Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress front end? If so, could an external designer do this with minimal cooperation from the company's web developers? Would this be a reasonable thing for me to demand?
The sites do not meet accessibility standards; it's pretty embarrassing. I want to fix that too.
Sorry for the thread sitting. This problem is so big that I'm honestly not even sure what questions I should be asking.
posted by embrangled at 10:11 PM on February 16, 2013
Could email visuals to the developers?... screenshots with notations ...perhaps in conjunction with a written document. Could you do that? (I haven't checked 'Content Strategy For The Web', maybe it goes into detail about this).
Regarding CMS: How about getting a few quotes from local developers? Get a quote on the largest/most complicated site, and let these developers know more sites (more work) may quite possibly be available to work on, too (incentive for lower quote).
Providing these quotes to your charity manager(s) should help push CMS forward and show that future in-house site updates will be much more cost effective.
posted by artdrectr at 2:39 AM on February 17, 2013
Regarding CMS: How about getting a few quotes from local developers? Get a quote on the largest/most complicated site, and let these developers know more sites (more work) may quite possibly be available to work on, too (incentive for lower quote).
Providing these quotes to your charity manager(s) should help push CMS forward and show that future in-house site updates will be much more cost effective.
posted by artdrectr at 2:39 AM on February 17, 2013
Best answer: Ok, panic not - a new CMS is endgame but you need to build understanding and credibility first. The first thing you need to do is a broad audit of your current sites - what each one is for, what volume of content there is and what the expectations for updating are. It might actually be that you can kill one or two if they are no longer serving their original purpose, or reconcile content from one into another.
Once you've got a solid understanding of the audience and purpose of each site you can prioritise actions for quick wins, ie, can you get rid of any top level content that is out of date or otherwise irrelevant? Not replace, just outright delete.
Once that's sorted you can look at what pages can be updated with minimal editorial effort, eg a simple header update and a new picture on a landing page can jazz up a fairly static set of content fairly easily. Remove 'latest news' type titles on pages that aren't being changed frequently.
Now you can think about simple UX. Start with the smallest site - does the top level navigation reflect the broad content areas? Check out the search terms that people are using, is basic stuff buried? If it's too hard to rejig the menus you can add a highlight box to a front page.
Just these actions applied across your sites will get you to a good position to go deep, you really do learn by doing and it's actually lots of fun to clean up sprawling web estate from the content side. I've been in web publishing for years and I love this type of project - memail me if you've specific questions.
posted by freya_lamb at 6:09 AM on February 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
Once you've got a solid understanding of the audience and purpose of each site you can prioritise actions for quick wins, ie, can you get rid of any top level content that is out of date or otherwise irrelevant? Not replace, just outright delete.
Once that's sorted you can look at what pages can be updated with minimal editorial effort, eg a simple header update and a new picture on a landing page can jazz up a fairly static set of content fairly easily. Remove 'latest news' type titles on pages that aren't being changed frequently.
Now you can think about simple UX. Start with the smallest site - does the top level navigation reflect the broad content areas? Check out the search terms that people are using, is basic stuff buried? If it's too hard to rejig the menus you can add a highlight box to a front page.
Just these actions applied across your sites will get you to a good position to go deep, you really do learn by doing and it's actually lots of fun to clean up sprawling web estate from the content side. I've been in web publishing for years and I love this type of project - memail me if you've specific questions.
posted by freya_lamb at 6:09 AM on February 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
is there a valid reason why a big, hulking, database full of legacy code can't just be bolted onto a Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress front end? If so, could an external designer do this with minimal cooperation from the company's web developers? Would this be a reasonable thing for me to demand?
I wouldn't say it could be bolted on, but it could most definitely be migrated to the Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress native database structure, provided your content actually is in a database and not in HTML files. Well, even if it is in HTML files, but that's (usually) considerably more work. And a competent developer could do it with no cooperation whatsoever from the current developers, provided she had an export of the database (or copy of the HTML files) to work with.
posted by bricoleur at 4:29 PM on February 17, 2013
I wouldn't say it could be bolted on, but it could most definitely be migrated to the Drupal/Joomla/Wordpress native database structure, provided your content actually is in a database and not in HTML files. Well, even if it is in HTML files, but that's (usually) considerably more work. And a competent developer could do it with no cooperation whatsoever from the current developers, provided she had an export of the database (or copy of the HTML files) to work with.
posted by bricoleur at 4:29 PM on February 17, 2013
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With an overview of what content you have and basic plan in hand, you'll probably be able to make basic content/nav improvements and make smart decisions about future redesigns and new content.
posted by ninjakins at 1:55 PM on February 16, 2013 [2 favorites]