Pete as a newspaper

Over the past couple of months I’ve been at the head of a web site redesign project for GateHouse Media.

The site is our hub for accepting and distributing content across our media network, and so is a core element of our information systems. I’ll hereby refer to this division of GateHouse Media as the client.

The current site

We’ve recently received a final sign-off on the wireframes, and Nick Sergeant (co-worker & designer here at GHM), brought all of our hard work to fruition:

Wireframe & design draft

In order to make sure we move forward and meet our deadline (less than a month away), there are elements that require thought, attention, and reinforcement.

Client participation

The client signed off on the wireframe. This means that based on our analysis of the content structure, the layout that we employed has been approved.

We made healthy progress through the wireframing progress (4 iterations) by establishing early on the type of feedback that we were looking for. Doing so closed doors for speculation on the client’s part, and allowed us to establish a structural hierarchy.

Role definition

It is critical that roles are well-define early on in a project. There should be no question about whose responsible for what, and who is the guiding mind in which areas.

There is usually some role maintenance that you have to perform along the way, and this project was no exception. Our client was still trying to work in the we’re building the site for us mindset.

When Nick first showed off the first design draft (pictured above), we were greeted with a long set of changes that consisted mostly of layout adjustments, color/type tweaks, and a handful of nomenclature switches.

Having designated a Lead Designer role on this project, all aesthetic suggestions are going under their consideration.

Weeks of wireframing has yielded a product by this stage, and unless the evidence is very compelling, layout tweaks are discouraged.

The nomenclature switches are more than appropriate as they are related to audience-specific langauge, and we’ve established that the client is the standing authority there.

Documentation

This is less about guiding the client during this design stage as it is about guiding the client’s usage of the site later w/paper instead of with your valuable time.

The content management vendor that GHM has signed on with has left us developers with little wiggle room as far as creating robust web sites is concerned. A ton of custom code isn’t the half of it. When we want to increase the robust-ness of a site, it means that we have to increase the complexity of the process by which people update these sites.

Screen shots, numbered steps, and detailed directions are a must. It’s arduous, but seriously, these docs need to support a team of 10-15 people for the next couple of years.