I have often come across organisations that have decided they need a website. When I ask them what functionality they require they will readily reel off a load of internet related buzz-words such as streaming media, personalisation, google maps etc. However, when I ask them what the purpose of the website is and its objectives [...]
In this blog I am going to outline the steps I think are required to deliver a successful web project. These steps can be applied to any size of project whether it is simply building a new site or a whole new web platform.
Requirements capture and definition. In my opinion this is the most important [...]
I’m not sure why, but website usability testing is often seen as something beyond the remit or experience of web teams.
Usability testing really can be cheap and easy – you just need to buy your guinea pig lunch. Photo: CanadaGood on Flickr
I simply don’t buy this. I think anyone can run these sessions for nothing [...]
When I was in the UK Foreign Office web team, Stephen Hale (now Head of Digital Diplomacy) introduced an informal weekly workshop for the team to get together and mull over all things web.
The regular slot was an open invite and members of the team were encouraged to take turns leading the session with a [...]
When managing many sites and many webmasters it is important to maintain control of your content. At the FCO we have over 250 websites and 300 webmasters. It is impossible to keep track of all these sites and webmasters ourselves but workflow allows us to control access to creating and publishing content.
Wikipedia provides a good [...]
In my experience web teams often need to get out and about to explain what they can do for an organisation. And so we should!
But what’s the best way to present our ideas about the web to bosses and colleagues?
Should our approach be any different to presentations from other teams?
I’ve just read a great blog [...]
There’s loads of tools out there to measure social media chatter, but why is it so hard to measure the chatter AND see where it’s coming from?
Do you know which pages your visitors first see when they come to your website (other than your homepage of course)?
And do you know how many of those lovely visitors actually stick around long enough to do anything?
In my experience many web teams and managers don’t really know the answers to these important questions. And [...]
I have worked with web content management systems (WCMS) for a long time now. To me they are an essential tool for any large organisation wanting to manage lots of websites and content. I have always been surprised by the number of web professionals I have met who either don’t understand what a WCMS is [...]
Stuff we’ve Delicious tagged
![[from liamking81] Website design process diagram JPEG](http://www.boxesandarrows.com/files/banda/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide/designProcessDiagram.jpg){kind=link}
Take your intranet on the road (or to the canteen)
Before we begin: this post is aimed at folks with intranets to run, but I think the lessons can be applied to external sites too…
The beauty of running an intranet is you can easily meet your audience in the flesh, but it can still be easy to hide away in the office and not take [...]
Tagged: audience | Communication | intranet | research | users
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