PRC Kick-Off Meeting

Held on:
Attended by:
Dan Edmonds
Shawn King
Rachel Neel
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Notes

What We Discussed

  • New Home Page Structure – Referencing mostly SAPH we broke down the basic structure of a sub-site’s home page:
    • The Feature Area (read more about it on our Website Content Guide (WCG)) is at the top of the page. You’ll have full control over the Feature Image, Feature Blurb, and Feature Buttons. The WCG talks about effective ways to use your Feature Area Set, so be sure to reference it.
    • The Admissions Area is next, and is a white bar housing what we would describe as high-level recruitment information and a call to action area. You are allotted three buttons for this area, but will also have control over the WVU Voice Heading and the summary text below it.
    • Primary Links live in the blue bar, and should house more front-facing and recruitment related items. There is no button limit for this area.
    • Secondary Links (Additional Resources) live in the dark blue bar, and are meant to house whatever else is left. We recommend that any internal facing things that need to be on your website be placed in this area. There is no button limit for this area.
    • The News Area will be a live feed from your News Category. It displays five stories/their accompanying images, and a button to “View All News” which will go to the main News page but filter to your category. Micah, you should now have access to the News System. J Reach out to Support (cmsdesk@hsc.wvu.edu or 304-293-2491 option 1) and tell them you want to learn how to use the News System. They’ll schedule you for an appointment and walk you through it.
  • Top Navigation – You all asked if your links would be in the Top Navigation. While that is not currently built in, we agreed that we are more than able to make that possible.
  • Directory Feeds for Faculty/Staff/Affiliate Faculty – It seems that there is a need to display people who are affiliated with PRC, but not necessarily HSC/WVU Employees. We have started offering this on other school sites, so we will begin working on a directory feed for SPH that allows you to manually enter someone’s information if they are not in the HSC Directory. In the interim, you can read about the standard Directory Feed Macro in our WCG.
  • Logo/CDC Link Bar – You all expressed the need to display your logo. We cannot replace the WVU logo at the top, or put your logo into the Feature Area, so we suggested adding a bar styled similarly to Neuroscience which will hold your logo as well as a short blurb and a button leading to the CDC.
  • CDC Clause Bar – We also discussed a need to display the technical/legal talk about the CDC and their funding on your home page. We suggested the addition of a bar at the end of the page (right before the footer) which will be used to hold all of that information.
  • Images – The idea of an image carousel was brought up. We explained that carousels are typically very low engagement elements (3% of users), and also require frequent maintenance to keep the images up to date. These typically become outdated quickly as they are forgotten. They are also not great for accessibility. We absolutely understand that you want a visual representation of the things you offer, though. We suggested using the Feature Area to highlight some of these images, as well as relevant in-content images. Just keep in mind these need to meet accessibility standards, which you can read more about in our WCG.
  • Analytics – Pete was curious about the potential for analytics and behavior tracking. We will bake this into your new design, and can send you reports to give you an idea of how your site is performing. We can also add additional analytic elements if you want to watch a specific button or page.
  • Publications – This could become something more dynamic, rather than one large rich-text editor after the initial launch. For the time being, it can be migrated as-is.

 

What We Need From You

  • Your Content Structure – Think about how your content will fit into the structure we discussed today.
  • Start Migrating Your Content into the Dev Environment (As soon as you have access) – Once we give you access, you will have full reign to experiment. This environment is live, but hidden from the general public. Please, experiment! If you have any general questions about content (are you ready for it?), check out our WCG. We tried to cover all the topics editors could need to build their website efficiently, accessibly, and well-structured. If you find you are having trouble with Umbraco and it’s features, please feel free to contact our Support team at any time (cmsdesk@hsc.wvu.edu or 304-293-2491)! They will be able to walk you through whatever is going on. Also, feel free to keep in touch with Kim (obviously) as she is regularly in the CMS and knows a good bit.
  • Use Kim as a Liaison – If you at any point have concerns about something regarding this process (excluding content/Umbraco stuff, which you can direct to support), have questions, anything, please report to Kim. She will communicate with us and help all of us keep our communications in one direct stream.

 

What To Expect From Us

  • News System Access (ASAP) – Get Micah News System access. Done!
  • A Dev Environment (ASAP) -  We will get your dev site built and set up with the cooperation of our systems team. We will e-mail you and let you know as soon as it is ready for you to get in there and start migrating content.
  • Periodic Updates (Monthly/As Needed) – We will keep you in the loop as your website is built out. When we are finished adding new capabilities or features, we will be sure to let you all know. Please do not play with new elements until we let you know they are finished (example: if you look at your dev site one day and see the logo/CDC bar, do not go into Umbraco and start putting links and content in there. Until we let you know it’s complete, it is actively being worked on.). Everything we put in for this initial dev site is free to be played with! Just wait on new elements. Thank you J
  • A Whole Website! (January/February) – We are confident in setting a timeline for completion by the beginning of 2019. We know you are counting on a possible accreditation in the future and would like to be in the new design before that happens.
  • Future Improvements (After Launch) – We would love to continue helping in the future once your website is built! We look forward to working with you further!