Metadata – Part II
There were a few questions from the previous post on the metadata we’re planning on using for the Web Guide, so we thought we’d break it down a little and go into the various decisions we made along the way. Read more
loading...
Web guide – June project update
We’ve been fairly busy in the past month. You’ve seen some of the work we’ve been discussing on the blog regarding information architecture, metadata and content, as well as our current thinking on blogging itself.
But behind the scenes, we’ve been working on yet other areas. Read more
loading...
Crowd-sourced labels, names and IA via external folksonomies
We wanted to investigate the possibilities of attaching tags or folksonomies to our content. Our original Content Management System (CMS) didn’t have the ability to support internal tagging, so we decided to investigate options for externally-sourced tags. During some of our early tinkering, we explored what would be required to support a variety of ways to get tagging of content.
loading...
Data about data – metadata
In the last post, I spoke about the way we are developing the information architecture to ensure that content is easily discoverable, relevant and able to be sliced and diced a number of ways.
But these aren’t the only issues regarding content on the site. In reviewing the focus group information and brainstorming ourselves, we came up with content questions such as:
- I need to drive this policy forward internally. What’s the basis of the compliance rating?
- Is this content still relevant?
- Who do I go to for help on this topic?
- That IA structure we came up with: how are we going to implement it when we don’t have a sophisticated Content Management System (CMS)?
Coming to our aid is, of course, metadata.
loading...
Deliver me the content I need and nothing else or Information Architecture (IA)
One of the issues raised at the focus group we held a while back was that our users want information which is relevant to them. They want to find and make use of it quickly, without barriers. Our stats show us users tend to come with a purpose and want to fulfil it quickly:
“This guide is aiming at a whole bunch of people and one way you could address that is to say ok from a management point of view these are the important chunks, if you’re designing, these are the things that you should be looking at more seriously and if you’re the bunch of people who might be writing these pages then these are the sorts of things you should be across..” – Focus group response
loading...
Content Strategy Development: Aligning an IA with our Site’s (and our Content’s) Purpose
Content on the Web Publishing Guide is designed to assist Australian Government agencies to:
- Identify their legal and policy obligations
- Meet their legal and policy obligations
- Establish, manage and decommission their website(s)
- Apply web-based technologies to achieve their business goals
loading...
Quick Technical Wins
While a major site redevelopment and renewal is underway, business as usual still needs to continue. Some of the minor technical changes which don’t require high-level sign-off are easy to roll-out in parallel.
So, this week, without any major changes to our underlying technology, governance arrangements or content scope, we’ve been able to quickly perform the following:
1. Customised Agency Search results
Previous implementations of our search results page relied on an XML wrapper to process the results from Funnelback’s Agency Search service – with our move to some new infrastructure a few months ago, this process ‘broke’, and the quick fix was to move back to the hosted variation of the Agency Search Service (using the default look and feel).
loading...
“Hello World”
“Hello world”. It’s a traditional exercise for programmers learning a new language, so it makes sense to use it here. It’s possible that the phrase “Hello, new world” may be more applicable – we’re not necessarily learning new programming languages, but we are modifying our use of web technologies in new and exciting ways. For example, given the inroads governments are making in the Web 2.0 space, it has come as no surprise to us that visitors to the Web Publishing Guide (the Guide) are looking for specific information on Web 2.0 and other emerging technologies.
Putting this together with the fact that the site needs a review of its content, information architecture (IA) and processes, we decided it was time to spring clean the Guide. This will include adding information on new topics and making information easier to find and use.
loading...
Subscribe via RSS