MMI Website MMI Kickoff Meeting Nan Galbraith, Katherine Joyce, Andy Maffei, Al Plueddemann, Danielle Fino Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 23/24-October-2006

My Goals for next 2 days Inform MMI team members of the approach we are taking with website redesign Gain endorsement for the approach we have chosen Identify a team of MMI participants to play an advisory role for web redesign Get feedback on the work we have done so far (mostly will be done during day 2)

Day 1 - Monday (Strategy) An Overview

Website Design Process (how we’re gonna do it)

Define the Objectives: MMI Mission To promote the exchange, integration and use of marine data through enhanced data publishing, discovery, documentation and accessibility. More on the proposed Mission, Goals and Audience statements can be found at g/website/techteam/webupdate/ g/website/techteam/webupdate/ Please provide feedback

Define the Objectives: MMI Goals Provide information and guidance on emerging standards and tools in oceanographic metadata Provide value-added reviews and documentation of tools, standards, and projects related to management and use of marine science data and metadata. Build community among people interested in collection, archiving and dissemination of marine science data and metadata Provide access to tools to solve specific problems in marine metadata interoperability Become the “go-to place” for marine metadata information

Define the Objectives: MMI Audiences Scientists - provide guidance for integrating metadata into marine science datasets and ease the task of publishing data Data managers and data processors – provide guidance on tools, standards, best practices Technologists – provide tools, information on standards, a venue to describe or test their projects, a community, demonstration projects Agencies and managers - provide a view of trends, ideas, and projects within the marine data community Students – provide information on best practices and new trends in marine metadata

Current Site Analysis: User Survey

Current Site Analysis: Statistics Highpoints –Visits are going up (total = 180,000) –More visits during week than on weekends, more at day instead of night [means folks coming from work -- not like myspace] –Visit duration is short (80% stay for only 0-30s, this is unusually high but this might be bots) –Lots of page views per visit (7, also possibly bot-related) –.edu visits seems low, something to track after redesign –Top pages shows technical audience (other than “what is ontology” –Total MMI site members is increasing. This is important

Current Site Analysis: Top Pages 1) Homepage - 15,762 2) What is an Ontology? – 9, ) Login page – 8,324 4) Search – ) Cyndy Chandler’s “newly added item test” viewhttp://marinemetadata.org/Members/cchandler/Testing/addItem /atct_topic_ view 6) topic (user = aisenor) – ) – ) /2005/08/gcmd-keyw – ) RSS feed for events – ) Guides – ) General Information – ) Manager Feedback Form, Plone plugin ) Projects ( – 2852http://marinemetadata.org/examples 14) /2005/08/gcmd-inst – ) Events – 2691

Comparative Analysis Rationale – To better understand what similar sites are doing – To evaluate the content, design, and functionality of related sites – To identify pitfalls so we can avoid them – To avoid “re-inventing the wheel” in the iterative design process – To expand the knowledge base for those working on the re-design

Comparative Analysis Relevant themes identified: – Identity is important. Know your purpose, state it, and create an identity, or “brand” to go with it. – Organization is essential. High-level navigation should reflect the site’s purpose. – Content is critical. The usefulness of a site comes down to the content. "Evenness" of content at comparable navigation levels is important, but difficult to achieve. – Participation builds community. Multiple opportunities for participation should be “up front” and easy to understand. – Details matter. Minor problems can annoy users and discourage repeat use of the site in spite of good content. Sites reviewed in report: – National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), Environmental Information Exchange Network, FGDC, Global Change Master Directory

Project Plan Milestones Preliminary (Optimistic) Project Milestones –Project Start (7/1/2006) –Maine MMI Kickoff Meeting (10/23/2006) –Initial Wireframe (12/4/2006) –User Interface Design Complete (1/16/2007) –Plone Implementation Plan Complete (1/22/2007) –New Website Released (3/30/2007) These will all need to be updated, and schedule baseline will be set after this meeting

Project Plan Chart

Site Map

Building the new website Engage website partners –Identify both funded and volunteer groups –Work together for coherent progress Teams –Need the expertise of both the Guides team and Tech team Site Dynamics –Consider elements of an editorial process –Plone workflow: when are items published? –Information architecture: where to put things? –What process guides decisions on content/organization? Plone product review –Evaluation of new products –What features and products are working well for us?

MMI Website Breakout (Tuesday) A Working Session

Website Development Process

Navigation, why is it important?

SurveyMonkey Questions Discussion Notes:

Website Project Plan

Website Block Structure Discussion Notes:

Comparative Analysis – To better understand what similar sites are doing, which approaches work well, and how to provide a compelling web presence. – To expand our knowledge base and discover new information about content and functionality. – User expectations for content, functionality and design may be influenced by comparative sites. – Web sites with somewhat comparable mission and content to the MMI site were evaluated (FGDC, NBII, EEN, GCMD)

Comparitive Analysis Discussion Notes:

Current Site Analysis: Statistics Highpoints –Visits are going up (total = 180,000) –More visits during week than on weekends, more at day instead of night [means folks coming from work -- not like myspace] –Visit duration is short (80% stay for only 0-30s, this is unusually high but this might be bots) –Lots of page views per visit (7, also possibly bot-related) –.edu visits seems low, something to track after redesign –Top pages shows technical audience (other than “what is ontology” –Total MMI site members is increasing. This is important

Current MMI Website Statistics

Current MMI Website Analysis Statistics (August 05-06) Discussion Notes:

Content: How do the guides best fit in? Discussion Notes:

Content: Editorial Process Proper design will provide a clear location for content to go Menus should remain consistent Need a process for reviewing new content Different authorities at different levels

Editorial Process Discussion Notes:

Roles of other project participants in new webdesign? Who?What? Nan Luis Karen

Website Advisory Team (one model) Team composition –Use the current technical advisory team or create a new one(?) –Add someone with experience in web design? Team work –Work done by leader adding items to tech committee agenda –Provide regular updates to tech comm on web redesign work –Review decisions on web issues with broad impact –Advise MMI executive team on website status and needs Team authority –Team leader able to pull together necessary people to accomplish sub-tasks and report back to tech team

Content Editorial Process Open Discussion Discussion Results: –This will be an open discussion about editorial process

Plone Considerations Design work done independent of plone, but use names in Plone stylesheets Port frontend to a Plone “product” Possible plone addins –Help Center product might help with online guides. Has TOC, etc. –ATVocabulary plone product has OWL support, needs looking at –Captcha provides additional security –Webstats Manager provides better statistics