Learn what makes a website great for 2014 and beyond. See common causes of website failure for corporate and organizational websites. Move ahead with strategies like website redesigns, reskins or revisions, managing stakeholder expectations, and steps to build a successful website RFP and Statement of Work.

1. SHIFT_THE FUTURE
Crystal Olig | @sparklegem | Oxiem | January 2014

2. Web in 2014
How to manage into the next best website for you

5. What You’ll Learn
Common causes of website failure
How to move forward
Managing stakeholder expectations

6. Top 10 Issues with Websites Now
1. Content proliferation & governance
2. Outdated design or branding
3. Outdated technology
4. Poor information architecture
5. Not suited for current needs
6. Too few conversions
7. Not able to optimize for search
8. Not able to update internally
9. Established best practices not followed
10. Needs to be optimized for new screens &
devices

7. Top 10 Issues
Outdated design and branding

8. Top 10 Issues
Content proliferation

9. Top 10 Issues
Not suited for current needs

10. Top 10 Issues
Confusing information architecture

11. Top 10 Issues
Not updated for modern screens

12. Top 10 Issues
Confusing information architecture

13. Starting Points
Revise, Reskin, or Redo?
§ Revise
§ Imagery
§ Menu items
§ Page organization
§ Reskin
§ Light updates to color or typography
§ Imagery
§ Backgrounds
§ Redesign
§ Moving major elements or revising page
layouts
§ Changing core functionality
§ Entirely new navigation desired
§ Responsive design focused

15. On Responsive
Q: “Can You Just Make My Site Responsive?”
Why you might ask:
§ I spent $XX on the site and it took forever… I
can’t go through that again
§ People won’t sign off on a whole new site
again
§ The look & feel and features are fine – I just
want it to be accessible on tablets and
phones

16. On Responsive
A: Not if you want it done right.
Why Not:
§ Responsive is a core
technology
§ If you mash your desktop site
down, you’ve lost an
opportunity
§ Starting from desktop is
usually a bad idea
“Seems like a lot of
people are laboring
under the mistaken
impression that using
responsive design
means they can make a
mobile website without
dealing with their
content problem.”
Karen McGrane in
“Responsive Design
Won’t Fix Your Content
Problem,” A List Apart
http://alistapart.com/column/responsive-design-wont-fix-your-content-problem

17. How to Move Forward
What to Focus On
Starting Points

18. What to Focus On: Technology
§ Content – Take inventory, prioritize, curate
§ Conversion – Use your data to create tools,
interactions
§ UI/UX – What are the conventions and
expectations to make a path clear
§ Workflow – How will the site create actionable
tasks to build business? How will key inputs be
managed?
§ Styles – Branding, styletil.es
§ Features – What it does

19. What to Focus On: Technology
Great questions to ask:
§ Who needs to use the website?
§ How are we going to keep it updated?
§ How will leads come in?
§ What points of interaction are present?
§ How does this integrate into our business
processes?
§ What is delivered on smartphones and tablets?

20. What to Focus On: Technology
Lower on the list:
§ Exact layout – now it’s water in different
containers
§ Platform or programming languages
§ Hosting
§ CMS

21. What to Focus On: Technology
Great questions to ask:
§ How secure is your platform or your hosting?
§ Is the CMS search engine friendly? How so?
§ What happens if my site goes down?

22. What to Focus On: Partners
§ Partner personality match
§ Quality of past work for similar industries or sites
that could be similar to yours
§ Referrals/references
§ Timing expectations

23. What to Focus On: Partners
Great questions to ask:
§ What is your QA or testing procedure?
§ How do you guide me through the process?
§ What do you do if my idea stinks?
§ How often do your sites launch on time?
§ What am I required to do for the site?

24. Ways to Find a Partner
How
§ Write an RFP (my least favorite)
§ RFQs
§ Write a creative brief or site map & share it
§ Create a functional specs guide of requirements
§ Share your budget (! – More on that later)
§ Talk about problems to be solved, not the solutions
Who
§ Reach out to your network for references
§ Staffing organizations
§ Job boards
§ LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter
§ Professional organizations

25. Starting Points
Understand Budgeting Models
§ Pricing based on hours of labor
§ Fixed
§ Range
§ Different models?
§ Hosted solutions with fixed templates
§ Purchased themes that can be customized
(themeforest.com)
§ Custom development

26. Starting Points
Finding a Number
How numbers are quoted:
• Ranges
• Fixed prices
• Specifications to an
extreme extent
• Padding like crazy
Your number is only going to
be as accurate as your
requirements.
http://gadgetopia.com/post/7906
“Come on, is it really going to
take that much money to do it?
My response is always the same.
Probably not, but your
requirements are so vague that
the chances for a
misunderstanding are huge.
Therefore, to protect myself, I’m
bidding for the worst case. If
you don’t like this number, then
let’s develop your requirements
so that the worst case is less
likely to happen.”
Everyone Wants a Number, by
Deane Barker, Gadgetopia

27. How to Get Started
1. Determine what type of partners you need
2. Complete an internal audit of content and fuction
3. Gather data & feedback
4. Set priorities and get stakeholder buy in
5. Select a partner(s)
6. Architecture planned
7. Wireframes & designs
8. Development
9. Content creation & population
10. Test & launch

28. Generally speaking, your web
content is useless unless it does one
both of the following:
Supports a key business objective
Supports a user (or customer) in
completing a task
Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web

29. Managing Expectations

30. Managing Expectations
Why?
§ Your budget is limited
§ Not everything can go on the homepage
§ You need buy-in to succeed
§ Clarity benefits everyone
§ Technology can be a black hole… if you let it

31. Managing Expectations
Best Practices in Technology Management
§ Clear specifications
§ Creative or Project Brief
§ Statement of Work
§ Great wireframes or early concepting
§ Put it all in writing
§ Key stakeholders involved in crucial decisions,
the “points of no return”
§ Be clear about timing needs and flexible on
outcomes

32. Managing Expectations
Issue:
Designs are sent to your
team. You get no
feedback.
Consequences:
You wrongly assume no
one had thoughts.
You proceed with the
design only to need to
change it too late in the
process.
Solution:
Schedule a time for all to
review design comps, with
your designer or partners
as schedules allow.

33. Managing Expectations
Issue:
No one is able to agree on a
design direction.
Consequences:
Design becomes the focus of
the website process.
It puts a wrench in the
timeline.
Solution:
Own the process of
collecting and suggesting
revisions.
Ensure a creative strategy
brief is created at the start of
the project, and that it is
agreed to.
Find samples and
competitive benchmarks
ahead of time.
Isolate key outliers.

34. Managing Expectations
Issue:
Getting “the stuff” for your
website is hard
Consequences:
It becomes all your job.
It is no one’s job.
Solution:
Act as the quarterback.
Have breakout sessions with
each department,
brainstorming ideas for
completion.
You may hide pages, then fill
the pages when content after
the website is live.
Find a professional writer to
assist.
Suggest existing literature
(brochures, other print
material, or current on-site
copy) and repurpose for the
web.

36. thank you
crystal olig@sparklegem
colig@oxiem.com