As an Oregon government agency, board or commission, there is a lot to be gained in (re)designing your website.
Not only will the look and feel get a face-lift, but deploying a new task-driven content strategy with updated functionality can make it easier for your customers to find information and perform needed tasks. Our goal is to provide you with the flexibility needed to focus on your site visitors and still keep the consistent look and feel of Oregon.gov.
Steps to a Successful (Re)design Project
1. Audit your pages and documents
While much of your website's content may be untouched or unaltered for long periods of time, occassionally, an agency should perform a content audit. A content audit is a comprehensive review of all pages and documnets on your website, rating them for accuracy and necessity, as well as identifying their owner, determining whether they meet your content strategy goals, and ensuring that your content is both easy to locate and simple to use.
The level of effort necesary for the audit is dependent on the size of your staff and the amount of content or complexity of your existing website. A typical content audit conists of an exhaustive list of all documents and pages hosted on your website, usage details such as page views or document clicks, and notes, classifications, and decisions made and recorded during the audit process.
While it may not be most entertaining part of a website redesign, it can pay off enormously. Content audits may result in many lessons learned by finding out of date content, scope reduction by planning to remove content from the site, and a better understanding of who your website's main audinces are, which in turn informs the architecture and navigation schemes used for your new website.
If your website is hosted by the E-Government Program, a good place to start is by requesting a Content Inventory, which is a report continaing every page and document hosted on your website as well as metrics and
2. Plan your project & get buy-in
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3. Test your plan with Oregonians
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4. Build out your new website
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5. Verify your site for accessibility & code quality
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6. Perform usability tests with Oregonians
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7. Makes tweaks & launch your website
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8. Maintain, govern, and improve your site
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