CIS New Website SPOILERS

Since I last discussed the new CIS website, the designers have been hard at work creating the mockup pages that would represent their proposed look and feel of the new site. I do not envy them at all for this task, as I have been told we are giving them the most complicated, detailed, and extensive website that they have yet had to build, yet we were somewhat vague on how exactly we wanted it to look. As the manager of this whole web redesign project on our end, I got a sneak peek at the new CIS website mockups a couple weeks ago - and whooo eeee are they great!!! Still, they needed a little modification before going before the larger web committee - wait, what committee?

Okay, time out. Shortly after being shown the mockups, it became clear that there were multiple people in CIS that should be at the table when it comes to providing feedback regarding design, navigation, and content. Thus far I have served as the main contact to determine general guidelines, content, layout, and a sitemap, but as we progress in the project my role will shift to overseeing a committee of diverse members that represent our various audiences here in CIS. Which really means: I will still be doing most of the work on our end, while the Wallace Center does the work on their end, but the committee will provide valuable feedback, especially in areas where I am not an expert (research groups, grad programs, etc). So, I assembled a group that includes the Director, Associate Director, Grad Program Coordinator, Ugrad Coordinator, our database manager, a couple students, and a couple other members who I know are deeply involved with students and research to comprise the CIS Web Committee. And once I got our schedules coordinated, I was able to squeeze in a meeting before break to review the updated mockups, which brings us to yesterday -

- THE BIG REVEAL! The whole committee ventured to the Wallace Center to be presented the mockups along with some explanations and descriptions of features. We were shown seven sample pages: 2 examples of the front page layout; the News database; an example news article (complete with tags!); the research landing page; an example research lab page; and two examples illustrating the new way of listing group publications on research pages, which employs both accordions and tabbed pages (pretty impressive, and apparently a new method of display not attempted before, at least not by these designers). There is no actual functioning website yet, these were merely images of layouts meant to represent what the website could look like and what features it will include.

Since I have been in on it all along I mostly stayed in the back and observed everyone else's reactions - and they were all great! The mockups were a smashing success, and the presentation led to some valuable discussions about what was shown and how to proceed. With only very slight additions/modifications, the whole committee gave their blessing - WOO HOO! This is a major step in the overall new website process.

So, what happens next? Basically, I have to keep meeting with the Wallace Center to finalize the site maps and navigation so that they can start building the site for real. As I mentioned before this is a very long process, which I would say at this point we are about half way through. Once that's completed, I will reconvene the committee so that we can make sure all our bases are covered content-wise.

Well the title of this blog post promises spoilers, so I will tease you with this: the new website employs a color scheme of gray tones and orange. The front page contains practically all of the information it currently does, but somehow does it in a really beautiful manner. I realize this isn't a whole lot to go on, so here is a tiny-size, blurred out screen shot of what it looks like:

Sorry, that's the best I can do for now; you'll just have to wait to see more! I have to retain some exclusive benefit for those of us putting in all the work...