Monday, November 2, 2009
Topic: The BLINK design process, content management system, dynamic navigation
Participants: Penny White, Annie Krinsky, Sylvia Bass, Sonja Elson
UCSD hosts : Sydney Donahoe - Director Portal Services (ACT); Brett Pollak, Campus Web Manager; Allisa Becker, Operations Manager, Portal Services; Mojgan Amini, Director of Research Applications, User Experience.
Over lunch met with Jennifer Sturak, Managing Editor; Shelley Herron, Senior Analyst; Liz Morrison, Senior Writer.
Agenda:
A. Blink overview
B. Deployment
C. CMS in Blink context
D.Taxonomy
E. Applications
A. BLINK overview - Sydney
1. In response to 1000 users' requests, Search field appears prominently on home page. Also placed above in banner section where the functionality is being re-worked. In future the people directory search will appear on left side, separately from standard Search fields.
2. Planning tool - SourceForge (similar to JIRA)
3. Toolbox will feature all personal tools such as My Blink. After old right column dashboards were removed, ( hated by ACT staff) there was an outcry from users who lost bookmarks. Solution = 'service available in browsers'
4. News - Users perceive there was more news on old BLINK whereas the opposite is true.
The rotating news pics have been paused by default.
5. Weekly Poll widget to use as quiz - (may purchase an application) will replace the Drive Time and Walk UCSD modules on right which are confusing to users as they also represent news which appears on the left
6. Users - 100,000 individuals per month in BLINK.
7. Widgets - Calendar (Google calendar), Maps, Updates . Shuttle tracks realtime position of bus.
8. Last Update info - placed near top of page.
9. Accessibility and Emergency info included in footer
10 Editors - Only SuperSMEs (subject matter experts) are allowed editing access.
B. Deployment, nuances, enhancements, work-arounds, and deployment of the Hannon Hill content management system - Brett Pollack
a. The Campus Web office provides brand consistency and compliance across all sites.
b. Cascade Server 5.7v - moving to 6.0 at end of 2009. Will be able to share data across websites and protect web data ...server redundancy.
c. Google Search appliance - each site has its own account;
d. Private content - CMS is separate from web server. . Password protected on web server side - have to log in to directory.
Use it with HT access .
C. How CMS works in the BLINK context - Allisa
1. Reviewed Info page - http://blink.ucsd.edu/finance/accountability/ethics/core-values.html
which also was a Drawer template.
2. Automatic update reminders -this has not been set up because pages belong to groups and not individuals. Rely on reminders from users and others.
3. Navigational behavior - dynamic -
4. Drawer template -- is a data def in CMS with intro box, intro body, and media sections.
5. Left nav depends on taxonomy Although there are areas for related links that are not in the taxonomy
6. Staging (Test) area for review purposes. Can be published but restricted to BLINK staff.
Remember to unpublish before moving content to another section!
D. Taxonomy - organizing pages into one content taxonomy - Sydney
1. All topic tabs were placed in left nav.
2. Dynamic navigation (set in CMS) follows user around. Design team limited to 10 items or less in drop down
3. People tab (was renamed HR - the only one to refer to dept name - as users did not respond well to 'People" } was created in step by step process:
i.Spreadsheet
ii.Top level heads > site map
iii. Card sort - limited to 2 levels. Used a card sort app - OptimalSort - 400 participants. Results were analyzed by Operations Manager -
4. Placeholder emergency sites for Wild Fires, and Flu (organized by audience)
E. Applications - Mojgan
1. working on creating MY BLINK w/ SSO account. First time user is instructed to Activate My BLINK. Second visit user who has not yet configured sees Set Up My BLINK. and then sees MyBLINK and the personalized list.
2. Migration - Behind the scenes did batch applications. ... database.. and mapped to right fields to CMS.
Archived pages in old BLINK - recommend elimination. Massive spreadsheet developed on step by step approval to accomplish successful turnover.