Frequently Asked Questions… or questions we frequently asked ourselves.

Note: this document was originally written to address the rollout of the first major change to the SOU website. However most of the information below is still accurate and relevant.

This is an evolving document. Yes some of the questions and answers are a bit flippant, but we’re being honest, and honesty can be more palatable when mixed with humor. The questions and answers are in no particular order. As always, if you have questions, begin by emailing Jeremy Speer.

Will this mean more work for me?

No. Due to the current Web Manager suddenly coming to his senses, we’re going to hold off switching to a new content management system. So that means Publish is sticking around a while longer.

What should I be doing now?

Take stock of your website. Do a content audit. Remind yourself of what you have out there… you might be surprised. If there are parts that are out of date, or nobody can remember why they are there, delete them. If text on a webpage makes little or no sense to you, the owner, it is probably of little use to the outside world. If you are not comfortable deleting content, create a Word document, copy the text off the webpage and paste it into the Word doc, save that document, then delete the webpage. If it turns out somebody actually needed that page, you can restore it from the Word doc. But, the bigger question to ask is “why was that page needed?” If you are the designated web master (itself an archaic term) for a department, you have the right to know why somebody is requesting something online.

Is Publish going away?

Outlook hazy. Ask again later.

My son/daughter/gardener/bartender told me about a CMS called Drupal. Did you consider Drupal?

Yes. In fact Drupal has been available to faculty/staff/students at SOU for years. You knew this, right? You have a Drupal site here? No, you don’t?

The issue with Drupal is, while potentially more flexible than WordPress, it requires more care and feeding, i.e. resources. WordPress and Drupal are very similar in how they work. Choosing one does not preclude using the other at some point.

Why wasn’t I consulted?

You were probably busy and missed the email. No, to be truthful, the web advisory committee scheduled several meetings with the most representative people we could get into a room while the team from Sockeye was in Ashland. But here’s what we learned: get five faculty members in a room and you wind up with 10 opinions. Without having something concrete to show and discuss the conversations quickly went down various rabbit holes. So the committee elected to gather what solid feedback they could and let Sockeye come back with some design examples. That, it turned out, had its own set of problems, but that’s another story.

Who made these decisions?

Important people way above your (and my) pay grade. No, that’s not true. First, it’s important to know that, for this part of the project, no web content is being cut, it’s only being re-styled. So there was no “back room” committee meeting on what content should be eliminated.

Do I have to adhere to the design? Will there be design options.

No and yes. There will be a new look, but there will be opportunity for variation within that look. We want the website to better reflect SOU and part of SOU’s culture includes individualism. But we are one institution, so there needs to be consistency. Did I answer the question?

What is information architecture?

Information architecture is a fancy term concerning how content is organized and presented via different media. Think of the website as a department store, IA is the process of deciding what goes where in order to facilitate finding what visitors are looking for.

Will we nurture an active group of departmental web masters?

Yes, this is an important part of the rollout plan. Everybody working at SOU knows that resources are tight. The last thing the Marketing & Communications wants to do is micro-manage your site. We want to empower departments to make better use of the tools available.

Who’s in charge?

Jim Beaver, Director of Marketing and Communications is the final authority of what goes on the top-level web pages and the university homepage, but, provided you color within the lines provided by the aforementioned style guide, you have a great deal of freedom over departmental sites. Just don’t make the logo pink, ok?

How many templates will there be?

How many do you need? No, seriously, think about it. How many different types of pages does your site currently use? How many different types of pages are you willing to manage?

Tell me more about templates?

“Template” is probably the most overused and misunderstood term. When one hears “template” they often think their work has been done for them and all they need do is plug in some text (text invariably first typed into some ‘helpful’ application like MS Word) and move on to something more interesting. The reality is very different. Think of a template as a cookie-cutter. Sure, it shapes the cut of the dough, but the baker first must prep the dough, add garnish to the cut cookies, bake the cookies and then arrange to share the cookies with others. Yes, the cutter simplifies a key task, but it addresses only one part of the process.

Are you considering accessibility.

Very much so. But it is crucial to remember the onus is on the person creating the content. Accessibility is for humans, it is unrealistic to assume computers will take care of human needs automatically.

Will there be a web style guide?

Yes, we will have a guide, but a guide is more a starting point than the final word. The guide will evolve as the needs of the university evolve.

Will the new site support social networking, blogging, podcasting, viral video, content tagging, wikis, and additional interactive features?

Yes, but the real question is will you have the resources to fill the above channels with content? Is your department willing to commit the resources to fully exploit all the choices currently available in the online space? The Marketing and Communications department is all of three people, only one of whom is tasked with actually creating web content, so I can say with certainty we don’t have the resources to fill other departments social media feeds.

Are we building a bicycle shed or a nuclear power plant?

Unfortunately we are building more of a bicycle shed than a nuclear power plant. Were we building the latter, we would probably be done by now. See http://wikibin.org/articles/color-of-the-bikeshed.html