22 Jul 08 Transition to New Website Design & Architecture

ITTS has completed the first stage of the information architecture changes recommended by the usability studies. Members were provided with a preview of the site at Annual Conference and were excited by what they saw, and wanted to know when the redesigned site would launch.

After several weeks of careful study and conversations with various ALA managers, we have come to the conclusion that the best approach to our transition to the new site and new web architecture will be to:

1. “lock down” the current ALA website for the month of August (this means that we will not publish updates with the exception of news and news releases),

2. spend the next six weeks reorganizing the existing content into the new architecture and publishing it to the staging site,

3. deploy final changes to the staging site over the Labor Day weekend and make the staging site the new site with the new architecture on September 1st.

Details
1. Prior to July 31st, web content managers make any editing changes needed to refresh the current site, which will be frozen in that form until the transformed site goes live.
2. On August 1st, publishing (deploy) privileges are locked down until go-live, although all other Collage access remains.
3. During the month of August, web content managers transform (move, rename, categorize) their content into the new IA, assisted by Louise Gruenberg & Sean Bires. Donavan Vicha & Rob Carlson. Some units may not be able to finish, but Louise will help them prioritize so that everything essential is completed before they go live.
4. The transformed areas of the site are published to the staging server, allowing for troubleshooting of problems. Note: Members can be sent to the staging site to see new content. They can also view press releases & the news on the current or staging site.
5. On September 1, the site goes live in the new design with the new Google search appliance with its enhanced features.
6. ITTS continues to provide support for the completion of the tasks that could not be finished by the go live date.