Taking the pain out of website launches: illustrated with a case study from the Institution of Engin

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Taking the pain out of website launches
illustrated with a case study from the
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Dr Simon Lande, CEO Magus Internet World, 1 May
2008
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About the IET

• One of the worlds leading societies for the
  science, engineering and technology community
• Over 150,000 members in 127 countries
• Mission To build an open, flexible and limitless
  global knowledge network supported by
  individuals, companies and institutions and
  facilitated by the IET and its members.

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Magus ActiveStandards

• Website quality monitoring, analysis and
  visibility for multi-site, multi-editor,
  operations
• Reporting on anything everything that is
  contra-brand
• Best practice standards monitoring SEO,
  usability, accessibility, legal privacy
• Digital asset management audit and inventory
• Enables companies to focus resource on remedial
  action
• In place with Unilever, Shell, SABMiller, ING,
  The IET

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The IETs web operations

• www.theiet.org
• 20,000 web pages
• Content editors contributors throughout the
  organisation
• High volume of content maintained by volunteer
  members
• Recently adopted a new CMS

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www.theiet.org
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The web project

• Replacing an interim website built for a recent
  merger
• Acting on the results of extensive user testing
• New look and feel
• Complete restructure of the information
  architecture and navigation
• Migration of extensive content currently held on
  legacy websites

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Taking a standards-based approach

• Establishing goals
• Core focus on reputation, usability, consistency
  and content discoverability
• Audit of existing standards
• Creation of a committee to oversee the process
• Permanent role for management of online standards
• Standards measurability built into the design and
  HTML

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Implementation

• Website standards documentation clear
  unambiguous
• Checklists created for ease of use
• Training and workshops
• New governance structure created
• Website divided into sections, each with owner
• Website tested against standards during CMS
  implementation
• Used as a feedback loop to modify/extend
  standards set

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Example of the IETs website standards

• Producing content for the web
• Readability style tone of voice case usage
  grammatical guidelines
• Structuring and formatting content
• Discoverability SEO
• Title tags, metadata, keyword usage
• Use of PDFs and other downloadable documents
• Using images
• Template usage and standards
• Restricted content
• Group coherence
• Universal elements link policy internal and
  external websites
• File naming
• Legal standards

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Streamlining the launch process

• Tight timescales, and migration of high volumes
  of content
• Magus ActiveStandards used in pre-launch QA to
• Allow editors to identify errors as content
  published
• Control the QA/fixing management workflow
• Reinforce understanding of the new standards
• Pinpoint poorly understood standards for training
  purposes
• Reduction in pre-launch workload of 35

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ActiveStandards Management dashboard

• Shows site-wide status, and progress over time

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ActiveStandards Website dashboard

• Reports on compliance status and file assets

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ActiveStandards Checkpoint errors

• Standards are converted to checkpoints.
• Errors highlighted on the live page

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ActiveStandards Asset report - images

• ActiveStandards provides detailed information on
  all website assets, including images

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Managing standards post-launch

• ActiveStandards forms the cornerstone of the
  IETs ongoing standards compliance programme
• Helps web editors achieve and maintain high
  levels of quality
• Helpdesk for content/ presentation and technical
  issues
• Before ActiveStandards we had a frustrating hit
  and miss manual process with no quality control.
  Now we have a professionally-managed quality
  process that delivers consistency in a
  measurable, trackable way.

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Standards automatically monitored

• Examples of website standards monitored using
  ActiveStandards
• Template standards
• Do not list more than 10 items in any of the
  related information panels
• Overview text should be present on every page and
  conform to guidelines
• Refer to the "IET" rather than the "Institution
• For contact details include the applicable
  international dialling code
• Content presentation standards
• Paragraphs should be short for readability
• Do not use ltugt, ltbgt or ltigt tags to emphasize text
• All pages should contain header lthgt tags
• Use frequent subheadings to break up the text

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Standards automatically monitored (cont.)

• Links
• All links should be working
• Do not use 'click here', 'more' or 'here' as
  entire hyperlink text
• Detect links to internal Content Management
  System
• Downloads Flash
• Include information about document size within or
  next to the link
• PDF documents should be indicated by a PDF icon
• Code
• lttitlegt tags should be populated, and meaningful
• Limit title tag length to 65 characters or less
• Images
• All images should specify ALT attributes
• Images should not exceed 30k

10,000 pages 32 checkpoints 320,000
checks/session
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Achieving standards consistency and compliance
With ActiveStandards
With standard maintenance methodologies
With standard maintenance methodologies
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Benefits of website quality monitoring

• Reduces time to market
• More mileage from your online spend
• Protects against erosion of brand value
• Helps improve user experience of websites
• Maximises use of your CMS
• Natural extension to training

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Conclusions

• The IET took a standards-driven approach
• Case study proves the value of defining,
  implementing and managing website standards
  effectively

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PAS 124 Defining, implementing and managing
website standards
a framework to help organizations deploy
website standards efficiently and harness their
full potential.
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Thank you

• Take the pain out of website launches and
  comply with PAS 124, see
• activestandards.magus.co.uk
• Simon Lande
• simon.lande_at_magus.co.uk
• 44 (0)20 7019 4700