![]() ![]() ![]() Finally, phase 5 - launch and beyond - includes website and systems training, development of style and user guides, making the site live to the public, and follow-on maintenance and evaluation. ![]() Beta launch and follow-on testing and fixes also occur. In addition to developing announcement and testing/quality assurance plans, we actually build out the site here, incorporating any back-end systems as well as the content developed earlier. Phase 4 - production and QA - takes the longest. In phase 3 - visual design - we create and then select a final visual design and test how users like it. Phase 2 - developing site structure - includes auditing existing website content, creating the “information architecture” or site map, identifying how users will move through the site (what we call “feature sets and pathing”), establishing a content delivery plan and then beginning content development, and making and testing wireframes, a sort of pre-design schema incorporating all the items we want on the page, but not yet knowing where they’ll go. In phase 1 - defining the project and site - we form a team, conduct internal and external surveys, perform an industry analysis, and create a project plan and creative brief (the former sets schedules and responsibilities, the latter defines the creative vision and approval mechanisms). Is that also true for cities?įor websites, I use a five-step process, each comprised of milestones and deliverables. Does the virtual translate to the concrete? No matter how technology changes, the process used to design websites is fundamentally the same. This website design process got me thinking about the city design process, and what they’ve got in common. Technology changes at an exponential rate, and folks working in the web world - for higher ed or otherwise - must move accordingly. If you consider your own use way back in 2004, you probably didn’t visit many blogs, weren’t a part of Facebook or another social site, and didn’t use iTunes or YouTube. A lot has changed in that time - how HTML pages are structured, the use of Web 2.0 technologies, the interactive and insistent nature of users, and university branding. It’s something we haven’t done for four years, a long time in the world of the online. I manage web projects for a public university, and recently we held the kickoff meeting of a comprehensive website redesign. More often than not, I work in a virtual world. ![]()
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