Nancy presented a fairly detailed description of the project (as detailed as you can get in a 1.25-hour session!), talked about why Ball State needed to move forward with a website relaunch, and talked about the process they used to take apart-and rebuild-their site. Here’s a handout for the session. [This is a PDF of Nancy’s slides.]
From my own standpoint, just a few observations about Nancy’s presentation.
One of the key success factors for a major project like this is support from University leadership. Not only did the senior staff at Ball State support the relaunch, but President Jo Ann Gora was a major backer. That helps to clear political hurdles and alerts people across campus about how important the project is.
I couldn’t count the number of times Nancy mentioned the words “conversation” and “meeting.” Make no mistake—the more engagement there is with stakeholders in a project like this one, the more successful the outcome.
As I was listening to Nancy talk, I was aware of how many people contributed to the success of this project: from Ball State’s developers, to writers in the marketing office, to members of our own team. But one of the most important people in the mix was Nancy herself. Having a project leader who is a skilled communicator and who understands what kind of communications (emails, blogs, meetings) are necessary; whom to communicate with; and when to communicate is essential to the long-term success of the project. Nancy also has an ability to see the big picture and to dive into the details. Just the kind of skills that you want in someone leading a long-term, complicated project with many potential snags.
Michael’s Ten Essentials for a Successful Website Relaunch
As for my part of the session, I talked about a number of ways in which Ball State’s paid attention to essential elements that I believe are key to the success of a project like this one. These are in the PDF handout, but I’m adding them here because the sub-points don’t appear there.
1. Achieve clarity first.
2. Focus on audience needs.
3. Recruit the right allies.
4. Educate friend and foe.
5. Be realistic about your timeline and budget.
6. Begin with content.
7. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
8. Test, test, test.
9. Work starts when the site launches.
10. Go back to point 1.
Other Resources
I added some other resources to the handout, but in case you want them now, here they are:
College of William & Mary [ur=http://www.wm.edu/reweb]re.web blog[/url]
Karine Joly: “10 Tips to a Successful Website Redesign”
Michael Stoner: “Redesign or Redevelopment? Be Clear What Your Site Needs Before You Start Work”
Michael Stoner: “Mistakes Institutions Make in Website Redesigns”
Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?