Category Archives: Website Redesign

Website Redesign

Latest Website Upgrade provides significant user interface changes and introduces new features for all website users

Following the launch of the newly redesigned homepage, the latest web site upgrade (upgrade performed on Friday 4/9 in the afternoon) shows significant front end changes and introduces new features for all users of our website.

Some key points of interest:
Updated layout and design of pages that are in the Content Management System – you’ll notice that all the pages match the newly redesign homepage

  • Section Background Image has been moved to the top which presents a cleaner section header area (also the Section Title will never overlap the featured image as it was previously)
  • Sidebar widget headings match home page
  • New design for listing links (e.g. Sidebar Navigation, RSS Feed links, Contact)
  • New Global Full-Featured Search Box – can search from any page
  • New Breadcrumb design

New “List” page formatting (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/about/locations/ )

  • No more bullets, much cleaner list layout
  • Also the same for Departments, Collections, Exhibits, Committees, Partners, etc.

New Subject Page Layout (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/find/subjects/political-science-resources/ )

  • Easier to read list of subjects
  • Entire subject line can now be clicked to expand that particular subject

New Location Page Information: (As seen here: http://library.osu.edu/about/locations/thompson-library/ )

  • Includes location photo, full address, phone number, hours, embedded map with link to full map

New Library Map ( http://library.osu.edu/about/map/ )

  • Map of all Library locations with ability to get directions to any library location using Google Maps
  • Now includes regional library locations

Enhanced “Page Not Found” Page for broken links

  • It is important to know that your links are safe and it is common for portions of the website to move to a different section.
  • To assist users of our website that have outdated links, the enhanced Page Not Found page has been introduced:
  • An Example:
    1. Say you have a link for the Multimedia Collections page under Digital Projects:
    2. The link should read: http://library.osu.edu/projects-initiatives/digital-projects/multimedia-collections/ (Don’t click on this yet)
    3. But for some reason or another, the link has the “digital-projects” portion missing: http://library.osu.edu/projects-initiatives/multimedia-collections/ (Go ahead and click this incorrect link)
    4. The new enhanced “Page not found” will be displayed. Now click on “Click here now for suggested pages” and the page will do a quick web site search looking for a similar page.
    5. The top result shows the correct link to the Multimedia Collections Page!

Library Web Site Search Auto-Suggest:

  • This is located in the new Global Search Box under “Library Web Pages”
  • Similar to Google’s auto-suggest feature, just start typing and it will search the website for pages (currently limited to search only published pages within the Content Management System and only by Title)
  • Great for quickly navigation to any page if you know the Title of the page you are looking for!
  • If there are no results, the search will behave like our normal web site search and covers both the new website and the old website.

As always, if you have an questions, suggestions or any other feedback, please feel free to let us know: http://library.osu.edu/about/contact-us/webmaster-mail

First Iterations Posted

Today we’re posting the first two iterations of the OSU Libraries’ new home page for the redesigned web site. These wire frames illustrate two possible layouts of the Libraries’ home page, showing the fundamental elements of each, as well as their relative placement on the page. There’s also brief descriptive text in each box, with a sentence or two on the content of each.

Typically, wire frames are completed before artwork is developed. That’s true in this case, too. Graphic design work on the home page will begin after we’ve had a chance to review and digest the input provided through the feedback tool.

We’re looking for reactions, comments and suggestions to what’s on the drawing board. After we’ve gotten initial responses, we’ll take a look at the wire frames and see how they might be reconfigured or altered to incorporate some of the best suggestions.

So let us know what you think.

Home Page Development Underway

The LIPP team is continuing to work on the evolving home page for the Libraries new web site. Beth Black participated in two CIPS meetings in November, and brought back lots of good input that the team has been able to incorporate into the latest round of revisions.

The home page needs to present users with access to library tools and information, including:

-A search box
-Information on library services
-Features on exhibits, displays, lectures and special events
-Content to help visitors use the site and its resources

Jim Muir and Pam McClung on working on wire frames we’ll be sharing here to show the content that will be provided on the home page, as well as its approximate physical location. Two different iterations will be presented for reactions and suggestions. That input will be used to work toward another set of iterations.

A feature being considered for the home page is a “super footer.” The super footer incorporates a great deal more information at the bottom of the page than does a traditional footer. More about that later. We’ll be studying whether a super footer would be a useful tool for us to incorporate on the homepage on of our site.

Watch for news on when the first two iterations are posted to this blog…we want your comments!

Subject Pages Brown Bag Over Break

Winter Break is a great time to work on CMS pages. Several Subject Librarians have recently added good Subject pages to the new website. Here are a few of my favorite features of these pages:

  • The Geomorphology page starts with a definition of the term.
  • The Art Education page links to the Fine Arts collection and makes good use of the description field to explain why this collection is the one to visit for this subject.
  • The Nutrition page makes good use of the profile.
  • The Math History page includes catalog instruction information with targeted links to the catalog for examples in the Books by an Author and Books by a Subject widgets. This page also shows an experiment in progress with adding an RSS feed.

Do you have a good thing to share? Or a question about how to do you something on your subject page? Join Kathy Webb and Mary Scott for a brown bag session on subject web pages for the Libraries’ new web site. The session will be at the Thompson Library, Room 150B, on Wednesday, December 30 from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. We’ll talk about how to do what, and share tips, problems and ideas. Bring your problems or questions and see what ideas others might have for addressing them.

Help Design the Homepage!

What about the homepage?
Back to the drawing board

We have been saving the homepage for last, mostly because we wanted our organization to focus on the content of the website and not fixate on the home page. We like to use the analogy of “writing the book before you worry about the cover”.

But here we are, we’ve got whole sections going into production, we’ve got Carmen Library Link Widgets being published in Subject pages, time to get started. Over winter quarter we are going to offer an interactive design period, inviting all website visitors: Staff, Students, Patrons, Bystanders to offer their opinions on the designs that we have up.

We are going to post our working design concepts (we’re initially shooting for at least two) and provide visitors the ability to comment on them in a public forum. We hope that this will help us gather a good number of ideas about how our home page can be a great way to start using the OSUL website.

At several points during the design project, we will be taking the suggestions and incorporating them into the concepts and inviting more feedback. This will create an iterative loop, allowing us refine our homepage several times before we are ready to go live.

We will be posting the ‘Beta’ version up during the first week of March, 2010 looking for any minor tweaks and fixes. We will be switching to the finalized home page during Spring Break, 2010.

Content Migration Progress Update

We’ve been busy and so have you.
Here’s an update, without further ado…

Where We Are

We have to-date trained 78 people in our Intro to CMS classes. This is a lot of folks, but we have many more to go: there were 127 people who had ftp access to the old website and we expect about 200 content providers. If you think that you might have content that needs to be moved and haven’t signed up, please go to our registration form and find a class that works for you!

We have some great content already up: the How To Find section is very extensive, there are several subject pages up, and the jobs site has been live for several months now.

There is a bunch of new content in draft mode too. Some content providers are putting the final touches on their information, and some are scheduling the publishing to correspond with other efforts. One of the great features about the system that we’ve deployed is that they get to choose when things are put up and taken down.

Where We’re Going

First and foremost, we’d like to let you know that we are still conducting lots of training sessions: Intro to CMS, Subject Pages & Carmen Library Link, and Open Labs. We ask that you sign up so that we can gage the resources that we need. We also are happy to conduct consultations with Content Providers, both singly and in groups. If you have questions, we’d love to sit down and see if we can come up with answers.

If you have already published your content, you can help us by helping your peers. Let them know how to get trained, who they can talk to, what the system can do. If you see pages that haven’t migrated yet, contact the expert or owner of the content and encourage them to be trained. Have no idea who it belongs to? Contact us and we’ll see if we can figure it out together.

Carmen Library Link-Subject Page Class Added

We have added another session of the new class designed for those who will be building Subject pages on Thursday, November 19 from 9:00 am – 11:00 am. This session will cover the Carmen Library Link (CLL) editor and the connection from that system to the CMS for the creation of Subject pages using Carmen Library Link widgets. This session will also cover the changes to the CLL editor, so even those using it for a while are encouraged to attend.

All sessions are held in Room 390 of the Science and Engineering Library. Please use our sign up form to register. Space is limited to 14 participants per session.

Update on OSUL Website and CMS

New pages are springing up each week. Recently, the Science Cafe and the Open Access Day pages were published.

Training continues, with one more Intro session on October 29th, 2-4, in SEL 390. Please register if you plan to attend. November and December training dates will be announced soon.

Some have wondered when the new homepage will be published; it will switch to the new design during winter break. This allows everyone to get through the quarter with the current design. Pages will continue to be published throughout the site whenever the content provider determines the content is ready. Please contact us if you have questions.

October CMS Training Sessions

In October we are offering 2 General sessions (see below for dates and times). These classes cover how to use the CMS to create pages and a short portion on the navigational structure. Each session includes significant hands-on practice time. You are welcome to attend the training more than once. If you have not yet attended a CMS training session, this is where to start. We are also offering an Open Lab in October. Come with your questions and/or work in SEL 390 with helpers standing by,it’s up to you. If you have a particular question, please share it on the registration form so we can be prepared to answer it.

All sessions are held in Room 390 of the Science and Engineering Library. Please use our sign up form to register. Space is limited to 18 participants per session.

October Sessions

  • Thurs, 10/8 9:30-11:30 a.m. – Intro
  • Wed, 10/14 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Open Lab
  • Thurs, 10/29 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. – Intro

OSUL Website Update

The LIPP team would like to thank everyone who checked out the staff and faculty website preview, we got some really great feedback. That access is now closed so that we can focus on getting some of changes in place.

So far what we have in place:
• There are several sections that are in production already: the Thompson Renovation has been up for many weeks now and the AboutUs>Jobs section has already replaced the content on the old site.
• The system that provides visitors with the most current content is working great: both the old site and new site, sitting on different servers are using the same library.osu.edu url and seamlessly handling links between the two. (We worked very hard on this so that you wouldn’t notice!)
• A number of online forms have been created and are functioning well
• Most of the top two levels of navigation either have the final content or have redirects to the content on the old site

How we are going to move forward:
• Continue to add content via the CMS as providers are ready
• Make improvements to the Search Apparatus
• Improve the responsiveness of the website
• Polish the site’s visual presentation
• Address some accessibility concerns
• Leave the current home page in place for now and instead provide a preview home page for all visitors to use, which would be accessible from the current home page

So keep watching for new pages, but keep in mind that it’s your turn; we need your content! Sign up for training, call us for a consultation, enter your content and publish! See? Isn’t that easy?

Training Sign-Up
Training Materials (including site tree)
Give us your feedback