Our next steps
What needs to happen to effectively capitalize on the UB web in our next step?
- Side by side with the template project we need to run a content assessment, inventory and strategy project. It is really flip side of the template coin, and is completely essential for the UB web to function effectively as the #1 university wide communications tool to the web and our constituents, and if implemented properly, can be the cornerstone for university communications in the 21st century.
- Along with the template project, assign a team of content enthusiasts, editors, web strategists and usability specialists, along with stakeholder representatives, to do the following.
- Draft an audience overview that describes in detail all members of the UB audience that will be, and are currently touched by the UB web. In this overview formulate a hierarchy of priorities in terms of target audiences, tools to better reach these audiences, and terms in which our content will be defined and architected for these audiences.
- This draft should include a mission statement for the UB web in the 21st century, a list of stakeholders to be contacted and included as the project evolves, the top five or six categories that we will used to define the top level navigation for the UB web, a selection of keywords and marketing phrases we will use to reach our target audiences.
- From this draft we will want to take a content inventory of all the content in the UB web.
- We then need perform an analysis and assessment of the content, and shape this content in terms of our audience overview. This will be our content strategy.
- With this content strategy we would then create a taxonomy or a site map. This taxonomy entails taking our five or six top level categories, and assigning mutually exclusive link sets to each category. The top level categories being the parent navigation in a global nav system, and the secondary links being the children specifically assigned under each parent. With these set we can also define related links for each child set.
- In this way finding, global nav system, each link will have a specific place in the UB web, and each link will be defined and described within the context of the web page, so that the visitor will be able to know exactly where they are at any given page, simply by looking at the hierarchy and indicators built into the template specifically for this purpose. Like a map, each link will be distinct in the same way the location of a city is distinct, and the hypertext can then function as effectively as roads and highways do when a person knows what road they are on, where they are, and where they want to go.
- This system is based on a global nav system organized by audience, topic and task.