Content & Features Reno: Less Is More
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The document summarizes the redesign of the Penn State University Libraries website. The goals were to create a simpler, more minimalist design with less content by filtering out redundant, outdated, and trivial information. The project team developed a process of auditing content, creating one-page summaries of proposed features, and conducting iterative design with demos to stakeholders. By focusing on usability and essential information through a content overhaul and streamlined design, the redesign achieved more with less on the new website.
Content & Features Reno: Less Is More
- 1. Content and Features Reno: Less is More Internet Librarian 2017 October 23 Monterey, CA Charlie Morris Lead Web Developer Discovery, Access and Web Services Penn State University Libraries Twitter: @cdmo cdmorris@psu.edu
- 2. Quick Outline About Penn State Why more can be a problem The problem faced Goals of the project Development perspective Content work Finished product
- 3. Photo Credit: Penn State News
- 5. Thats a lot
- 6. A lot can be a problem
- 8. Old conventional wisdom: Information Density Quality of a site is measured in the amount of information per screen pixel (Edward Tufte)
- 9. The portal plague Portals, as you may know, are the most deadly plague of the global web ... (the) path of survival in the 21st century is clear and ahead; be like Google. Simple, unobtrusive, serving and humble -Philipp Lenssen 2003 http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2003_08_01_index.html
- 10. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds. -Jakob Nielsen https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-long-do-users-stay-on-web-pages/
- 11. Where a lot was too much
- 12. Platform and Redesign Project Before 10,000+ pages Hundreds of authors Public and staff-only content mixed Little-to-no content oversight Proprietary Java-based content management system Unstructured content Outdated/cluttered look
- 13. Migration Plan Rolling migration 18 months Team: 3 developers 1 content migrator 2 project managers 1.5 system administrators
- 14. 1. Move into Minimalist Design 2. Adopt a front end framework 3. Re-align with university style guidelines
- 16. Src: https://www.programmableweb.com/news/cope-create-once-publish-everywhere/2009/10/13 5. Structured content (one source)
- 17. Project Management: Less is More See https://gettingreal.37signals.com
- 18. "Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them." Src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it
- 19. Project Management Approach 1. Project one-pagers for all web development features (YAGNI) 2. Non IT department product owner for decision-making 3. Explain technical options clearly 4. Lo-fi wireframes 5. Demo often 6. Iterate on design and improvements
- 21. One Pager (Project Brief) Project Name One line description Requirements Out of Scope Team Schedule
- 22. One Pagers Pro Trim wasted time in planning docs that arent useful Especially with out of scope: address any predicted points of conflict and scope creep Con Agreed on terms arent always the same in everyones head Difficult to determine when needed what is a project?
- 23. Features and Functionality List Hours of Operation Alerts Homepage Feature Scholarly Database API Consumption Separate Staff Site with its own custom theme and features LibGuides API Integration Staff Directory Custom Theme Computer Availability API Integration Custom Content Workflow System
- 24. Features and Functionality List Hours of Operation Alerts Homepage Feature Scholarly Database API Consumption Separate Staff Site with its own custom theme and features LibGuides API Integration Staff Directory Custom Theme Computer Availability API Integration Custom Content Workflow System Occams Meat Cleaver Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/cleaver-halloween-fear-knife-1756677/
- 25. Out of Scoped Geolocation Web Service Endpoint creation QR codes Too many email triggers Personalization Over-integration of systems Semantic web work Chasing Tech
- 26. Taking a hard look at content
- 28. This was the hardest part
- 29. Audit, Filter, Place Separation of internal and external content Integrate disparate content into user centered menu no one knows what an Access Services department is Update/adjust content as needed Eliminate ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial)
- 30. No Workflow Workflow Trained author team After-the-fact review One source as much as possible
- 39. More work for less Usability studies Homepage updates Main landing page updates Better interface for research options for students The never-ending challenge of serving so many campuses across the state in one place How can we do less better?
- 40. What I'd like to suggest is a different approach. Instead of one-upping, try one- downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing. Do less than your competitors to beat them. -37signals (makers of Basecamp, Ruby on Rails)
Editor's Notes
- #2: Intros
- #4: First, A little background. The Penn State University Libraries serves a huge constituencyand its structure can be very complicated. 27 locations, across the state of pennsylvania油 46,055 square miles (1 for every 1,705 sq mi) 99,133 students as of 2016 (wikipedia)
- #5: One library geographically dispersed single dean 24 campus libraries,油2 law libraries and 2 medical school libraries 4 branch libraries at the main campus 12 subject/special libraries within our main building 36 departments,油1 division (PSU Press) As you can imagine, this complicated structure, vast audience and big hearted librarians caused a few problems in our site
- #6: Well call them opportunities
- #7: Well call them opportunities
- #8: Well call them opportunities
- #12: Well call them opportunities
- #13: Charlie
- #14: Migration plan Designer Development Section by section: home page, jobs pages, hours pages landing pages rearchitecture of services/research - May, 2016 Departments and Libraries - August, 2016 Migration complete and decommission - early September
- #15: Charlie
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- #21: Charlie
- #22: Charlie
- #23: Charlie
- #28: Content inventory every piece of content Based on google analytics Helped build our case for content management and oversight
- #30: As we worked through our content inventory Every piece of content reviewed - Meetings with every library and department , not always an easy sell web content is a valuable resource that should be curated, reviewed and weeded like any other collection less is more Separate internal and external content Every page has an owner avoid content ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial)
- #32: Charlie
- #33: Charlie
- #37: Information architecture Updated navigation focusing on services (not where you get them) and research tools Department pages are not subsites, but are simple, directory pages Subject and campus libraries pages are at a glance pages What do they have physically in their building rooms and spaces Whats different the way they lend reserves? Whats special about them collections, librarians? subjects
- #40: So Whats next? Discovery 油Database discovery project,油 staff profiles, LOD, schema.org, resources, people, services better planning for UX and analytics油 More transparency for pos in git lab tactics for continuing to make the site better for users