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Website Redesign Resources

Have you been tasked with redesigning your agency website? This guide is based on the steps put forth by the Oregon State e-Governance Board and includes extra resources to help you along the way.

 

A wireframe is a non-design document that shows the website in its barest form. You take ideas from the card sort and all the other research you’ve done and begin to map out the navigational structure

 

This will help you organize your content and inform your build-out process.

 

Mike Rohde's Wireframe Example

Wireframe example created by Mike Rohde

 


Want to review a few more resources? Learn more about Wireframes on GovSpace!

Once your wireframe is done your site will be put into a staging area where you can build and do usability testing. There you can browse a common set of templates with a set of web parts that will make up the overall structure of your website. Below is an example of a template:

 

Template Example from GovSpace

 

You will pick and choose from these templates to make your website as customized as you like, while maintaining a look and feel consistent with the state of Oregon family. You will notice that the templates are built around a task-oriented design.


Want to review a few more resources? Learn more about the Redesign process on GovSpace!

 

 

Develop your staging website enough so that you can test your top tasks with real customers.

 

Conduct usability testing with your customers/audience. There are multiple choices of usability testing available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Articles and Blog Posts

 

 

Cost Efficient Products

Podcast - The Web Ahead

Designing for Crisis with Eric Meyer

 

 

Too often, websites are designed with only the ideal user in mind — a typical person, in great health and sound mind, happy to be on your website doing a thing.

"Let's assume somebody's coming here and they're completely panicked, they're completely freaking out, and they still need to do the stuff that the site does. I don't know why they're here freaking out, but they're here freaking out. What do I think that they might want to do while they're freaking out?"

 


Want to review a few more resources? Learn more about Usability on GovSpace!

An example of a governance planning by Robert Jacoby

Governance means who gets to create content, who approves it for publication, and how the content will be managed so that it is either updated or removed when it is no longer relevant.

 

Workflow is one of the tools of governance. It can be simple (creator and publisher are the same person) or more complicated (creator, editor, and publisher are different people), but it’s up to you to determine how much workflow you will have.

eBooks


Want to review a few more resources? Learn more about Governance on GovSpace!

At this point you are ready to write the final content strategy.  It will include all the work you’ve done so far. The content strategy is a living document and should be referred to and updated often.  It serves as the governing document for your website from here on out.

An example on GovSpace is the content strategy for the Oregon Marine Board.

Brain Traffic's Content Strategy Quad

Mike Petroff's Content Strategy Quad


Want to review a few more resources? Learn more about Content Strategy on GovSpace!

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