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Planning a Successful Web Relaunch

    Last Updated on May 22, 2023

    Relaunching Your Website? Just Do It!

    From our workshop at the German Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation Jahrestagungen together with Bright Solutions in 2015. 

    You can find more articles on Website Design and Website Tech right here on my blog.

    1. Situation
    Purpose of Relaunch
    Benchmarks
    Requirements

    2. Processes
    Preparation/Stake Holders
    Analysis & Research
    Branding & Strategy
    Realisation

    3. Results
    4. Learnings
    5. Why Open Source?

    ———-

    1. Purpose of the Relaunch

    Content User Focused
    Create logical user stories.

    Simplified Structure
    Task driven, focus on user paths, not structured along internal structure

    User Friendly
    Mobile first layout, clean and simple Design

    What is Core?
    Review core content, core user stories

    2. Benchmarks

    • Mobile first
    • Lite, flat, clean
    • Mobile site and content management

    3. Requirements

    Editors
    How many people manage content?

    Product Owners
    Who are the content owners?

    End Users
    New standards of web content, new user expectations and patterns

    IT/Partners
    Current and future CMS – where will we need to be in 5 years?
    Internal and external competencies

    4. Processes

    How much time do we take for each aspect of this project? Surprisingly experience shows us that most of the time spent is in scoping out the project. Design thinking, feedback loops, planning as much as you can before the build.

    • Review of Branding and Communication Strategy 50%
    • Analyis and Research of past performance, content review 10%
    • Preparation and communication with Stake Holders 20%
    • Programming 30%

    5. Analysis and Research

    Numbers don’t lie! How much of your content is actually being viewed? How many user paths and steps are really necessary. Here are some examples from an actual project. Not sure where to begin vetting “good” and “bad” content and structure? Your analytic numbers are the best place to begin.

    Monthly visits: 55,000 clicks
    Pages in total on your website: 2,500
    Average length of time a visitor spends on your site: 1.5 minuten

    6. Learnings

    • Never start the project just before Christmas …
    • Editors and other stake holders must learn that less is more.  Fewer labels, less unread content …
    • Better user experience across all devices

    7. Why Open Source?

    • Costs, Competence, Creativity
    • Where (and if) should you use which CMS

    8. Overview

    • Since 2011 mobile devices have outsold desktop devices. There is no “mobile internet”.
    • 378 mobile phones are sold each day. 371 babies are born each day.
    • 4 W’s (and 1 H): Who, What, Why, Where (How).
    • You have 90 seconds to impress your visitor.
    • Just Do It
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