Now that the new public website is up and running, the Web Transformation Project team has turned its attention to redesigning the staff and student websites. We are expecting these to go live in the middle of 2016.
Once again we will be asking for your help, so it’s time to review the content on your website to get it ready for migration to the new staff and student sites.
What can I do?
Step 1: Spring clean (Dec 2015)
- Check usage of each page with web analytics
- Search for the name and topic of the page. Has a colleague published similar information?
- Are there past events, announcements or news older than 1 year?
- Can it be stored in another core system?
- PDF files will be difficult to update. Only keep the best few.
Fewer pages will save you significant time and effort in the next steps.
Step 2: Purpose and audience
- Identify who looks for or uses this information
- What role does it serve (e.g. Learning, or support)
- When is it most relevant
- Check if it is written to meet the needs of the audience. Does it focus on their top priority? Does it include information that is off topic?
- Use FormStack for online forms. Use OneHelp to lodge requests.
Step 3: Content audit
A more detailed continuation of the last step.
- Who owns the page
- Identify security permissions of pages
- What technologies are used?
- When was the page last updated?
- What changed since the previous step?
- Source quality images for the new website.
Step 4: Content migration
Check the destination location for the file.
- Correct migration issues
- Re-implement special functionality, or new web widgets.
- Check accessibility
- Identify short URLs and redirects affected by the migration
- Check permissions of the new pages
- Complete the metadata for each page
There will be a change freeze.
This is the biggest piece of work! Be prepared.