I guess we're still not sure where this blog is going since nobody posted yet, so I figured I'd try and start things up. I have a unique situation at work that I thought we could discuss. I was recently asked to lead a team in designing our new website. We actually already hired a company called CivicPlus to create the website, they just need us to tell us what we want in it. Although I just got assigned to the project, it has actually been going on for over a year. During this time it looks like they did absolutely nothing, but create a design for the home page, which a lot of people still aren't happy with : ) The first meeting I went to (this was before I was assigned to supposedly "lead" the project) we brought up the proposed home page and started discussing what we liked and disliked. We took an informal and collaborative approach, which was good, but we really didn't accomplish much because although we agreed on a lot of the things that we didn't like with the home page, nobody really had any suggestions on how to make it better. I still haven't decided what my next step is going to be, so if you have any suggestions I would appreciate them, but I think I have a better idea for us, so let me know what use think.
I say we go back to square one and talk about the best approach for creating a new website. You know like what steps we should take (brainstorming, post-its, etc...). We could even go as far as implementing it too, where we would go through a whole design process in order to create our own website for this club. I think it would be pretty fun to do this, but it also may be a little too much too soon, so it's up to you guys.
Another more simpler approach could be to look at our propsed website, which I pasted below and discuss it. You know just say what we like and dislike and why. And see where it goes from there. BTW, nobody should really be seeing this picture outside of the company, so please don't copy and paste it anywhere else. Thanks :)
5 comments:
Chris, sounds like they threw you a mess to organize. Sounds fun though too. I have a suggestion for the meetings, you mentioned people are saying what they don't like about the website but failing to offer suggestions for fixing it. What kind of prototypes are you using to describe what people don't like, are they just saying, if so maybe have them draw out what they don't like and a solution might appear. Also I am sure there are ways to make sure the user interface is intuitive and easy to use, I think Dave and Dan from the class might have some experience with that stuff.
Thanks Paul, that's the beauty of where I work, everything is always a mess here :) It was all visual related stuff that they didn't like. For example, they thought that the warning label in red was too small, they didn't like the clip art of the house and the office building, and a couple people were even complaining that having the screwdriver on the homepage was sending the message that we were "screwing" them. Drawing it is always a good idea, so I'm definitely going to give that a shot, but I actually sat down with the original project manager for some insight and he basically said that there were too many ego's in that meeting for anything to get accomplished and that I shouldn't worry about this layout anymore because the one shown was already approved. However, there were a lot of good points brought up about the current layout of the website, so we decided I would just sit down with a couple of the people, who should be involved in making these decisions and leave the rest of them out. We will have this one more meeting, come out of there satisifed, and move on from there because this phase of the project has already gone on for way too long.
This actually brings up a good question that I don't think we ever really discussed that much if at all. Using the design method, we aren't supposed to "fall in love" with our designs, and we're supposed to try to keep our designs in a liquid state as long as possible, but in doing this how can we ever really decide/know when a design is finished??? There has to be more than just a time constraint that tells us when we have come up with our final design right???
Here's another thought to toss out there ...
In every problem we see that there are about 6 things involved: who, what, where, when, how and why. Obviously these seem pretty institutive to answer, but it appears the original designers may not have “gotten into the head of the user” to understand how they are interacting with the website.
First of all, it sounds like you are using internal people to decide what is good and what’s not. I get the impression that this is a global website to be used by both internal folks and all current and future customers. What about tossing out the idea of working with a (small and manageable; no focus groups obviously!) group of customers who can tell you more about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. You may have your general consumer looking to pay their bill, a contractor building who needs info on specs and requirements, etc. I would say you might want to create a website that will almost give the appearance of a customizable experience for each user – making it easier for them to navigate and find info specific to them.
The same goes for a group of internal constituents who are working through the website. What are they looking for, what do they need? My guess is that you may find out that a portion of the material on the website may not be used by any constituent group at all and it can be ditched.
The aesthetic upgrades are great, but (if possible, because we all feel the pain of big organizations) I would suggest rethinking the structure from the bottom up.
Just a couple of thoughts – keep us posted. GOOD LUCK!
I think Lindsay is on track with the best approach for putting together a website. Before you can consider the design elements like color, text, graphics and all the bells and whistles you have to know what you want the site to accomplish.
Of course, what you can do will be constrained by time and money but if possible I would start by talking to various internal groups and see what they do now in the everyday processes that the website could impact. Some obvious areas already mentioned would be bill paying, notifying people about outages, reporting emergencies etc. Maybe there are other areas that could be addressed once you talk to the internal people a little more. Also, talking to some customers, contractors etc would be good input. Do you have a way to build prototypes with your website developer? This seems to be a challenge with software projects but I think a beta site that a limited number of people can work with would be very useful.
Thanks Lindsay,
The unique thing about the company is that since we are a utility company where our workers are forced to live in the city, so all of our current employees are actually paying customers as well, which is pretty much our target group for the website.
Right now we do feel that navigation is one of our biggest obstacles becuase everything is just all over the place, so we decided to put everything into general categories and work from there. It definitely has made it more organized, but we still feel like there is more on there than necessary, so we're working on cleaning it up. Our goal is to have it done by the end of the week.
Thanks Dan,
The way the process works, is that we send all of our design layouts and content over to a company called Civic Plus and then they have the task of putting it all together. Once they are done, they give us about 2 weeks to play around with it before it goes "Live." During that time we were considering giving a small group access to it, so that they can play around with the site and give us suggestions on we they think should be modified or corrected.
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