Site architecture planning
This work has involved developing and improving the information architecture of a site. This is achieved by running sessions with content owners to understand their needs and to map the content logically before the costly process of development begins.
One of the key components of this has been the 'JAD', joint architecture and design, sessions where I would work with the site owners in the development of a delivery plan that once agreed could be used by developers, managers and content producers to improve the efficiency of the site development.
These sessions would look at a number of key areas:
site content and structure. Here a logical approach to the content would be taken, often in the form of a 'card sort' procedure to allow for the content to be understood and moved around until it met the site objectives without the need to spend time developing site structures physically. Once agreed the structures could be documented and further tested and refined until the client was happy that their site was going to work as expected.
content ownership. This section would look at the way the content would be entered into the content management system. It allowed the site owner to define the roles within the system to ensure that the content was easily managed but also had strong editorial controls.
In addition to support and project management my role was to ensure that best practice in terms of usability was followed. I also acted on behalf of the University in general to ensure that all sections created supported the overhaul objectives of the University website.