The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Tag: Web redesign project

  • Celebrating the Launch of Our New Website

    Last week, we celebrated a day 18 months in the making—the launch of our new website! 

    As of 7 o’clock last Wednesday, anyone who visits libraries.rutgers.edu will be brought to our redesigned website. In case you missed it, here is a video highlighting some of the new features that users can now take advantage of (with special thanks to graduate assistant Natalie Lau for the narration): 

    It is so exciting for me to see how far this project has come. From our early sessions sorting cards or post-its and sketching personas, to the many phases of user research and testing, to the shiny new product you see here today, it has been an amazing process to be a part of. I know it will take some getting used to for everyone involved—both our users as well as our faculty and staff—but I think we’ve created a site that’s very special and something we all should be proud of. 

    As Consuella mentioned in her email, there are so many people to thank for helping this project come to fruition. Of course, this includes the project team—Doug Allen, Antonio Barrera, Amy Kimura, John Powell, Jonathan Torres, Sonia Yaco, and Yini Zhu—and especially the local representatives, who have had the difficult task of communicating with their units about a website that was constantly changing and growing. (This was such a fun and productive group to be a part of, and I will miss all of our pre-meeting shenanigans with the fancy Zoom filters!) It also includes the AULs and AVP—Judy Cohn, Regina Koury, Dee Magnoni, and Rhonda Marker—as well as their local teams, who have all had to prioritize this project despite so many other competing demands on their time. Last but certainly not least, thanks to the technical team who have dedicated many hours of development work to the site after it was handed off to us by NewCity—Eva Chan, Jie Geng, Dave Hoover, and Sam McDonald. 

    To that, I would like to add my personal thanks to the following people: 

    • Amy Kimura, without whose Herculean effort creating content, coordinating working groups, and liaising with NewCity this project would simply not have been possible; 
    • Antonio Barrera, whose project management and development expertise shone throughout this project, especially as he bridged the gap between the development teams at the Libraries and NewCity; 
    • Abbey DiPaolo, who was a constant champion for the project and always pushed us to make the website the best it could be, even when there were tough decisions to be made; 
    • Kris Maloney, whose vision for a better web presence for the Libraries inspired this project from the beginning; and 
    • Consuella Askew, who seamlessly took over the reins in the late phases and led our way to the finish line.  

    Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and many other cooks have contributed to this particular kitchen. But it has been one of the highlights of my professional career to have been a part of this project with this outstanding team, and I’m grateful to have played a small part in getting it to where it is today. That said, I know there is plenty more work to be done, and I am looking forward to continuing our efforts to make the Libraries’ website the best it can be for our users. 

    As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about the new site—whether yours or a patron’s—please direct them to webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu. You can also learn more about the site and the redesign project by visiting the Web Redesign Project Team’s staff resources page.  

  • Website Redesign Project Update – May 2021

    The redesign project reached a real milestone late last week, with the official handoff of the website from NewCity to the Rutgers team. This follows an intense period of testing, during which we worked closely with NewCity to ensure that the site was built and working as planned. We’re really pleased with what they’ve delivered and think it will suit our needs well. We’ll continue to have NewCity’s support over the next few months, both for development work and to consult about content. Amy has been working with subject matter experts and content teams from across the libraries and is excited that the real work of content building is finally underway.

    The team have targeted Wednesday, July 7 for a launch date. This is a huge project with a lot of dependencies, but we’re feeling fairly confident that we’ll hit this target. Several weeks prior to launch, Amy and the project team will be working with front-line staff and faculty to do site walk-throughs and answer any questions about where to find various pieces of information and how to perform common tasks. We’ll also be reaching out to external stakeholders to announce the new site in mid-June. The project team will be developing plans for that outreach over the next few weeks.

    In related news, planning for the libraries-wide adoption of LibCal Events is underway, and the project to develop a new subject vocabulary is wrapped up, thanks to a lot of thoughtful librarian involvement. Subject specialists are in the process of assigning updated lists of subject-specific resources and choosing top recommendations for our users. That project will also set us up to effectively connect users with the appropriate librarian for their subject.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Website Redesign Update: March 2021

    The redesign project has moved into development, an exciting phase when we’re starting to see all our hard work turn into an actual website. This follows a few months of wireframe and design approvals, during which we met with each unit to talk through how they can use the new library of building blocks (“components” in website-ese) to put together pages that will best suit their users’ needs. It’s a very flexible system that will allow us to easily keep things fresh, eye-catching, and well-suited to the content we need to present – above all, making sure the site provides easy access to what our users need most. We’ve been testing this component library out with different types of pages (landing pages, informational pages, news items, profiles, etc.) and are confident that it will provide us with what we need.

    A few notable features in development: the database portal will be searchable by title and keyword, with easy one-click access to each resource, short-cutting the “connect” pages that force users through an extra step. A redesigned subject browse will make it easy to locate well-curated, usable lists of subject-specific databases, and database descriptions will be streamlined. We’re also finding ways to surface our librarians and staff in various places around the site. This will help connect users to people who can help, and showcase the expertise we have here at the Libraries.

    A content plan is beginning to take shape, as well as a governance plan that will ensure the long-term integrity of the site and its content. It will be great on launch day, and keeping it that way will require regular attention and maintenance, coordinated around a long-term strategy.

    Related to the redesign, we’re planning to move to LibCal as the Librarieswide means of scheduling events. You can read more about the transition in this issue of the Agenda.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Website Redesign Project Update – November 2020

    The website redesign project team has completed baseline usability testing and analysis, and we’ve combined that with other research from the discovery process and are now moving into wireframing. Using the ideas generated during prototyping sessions last month with each of the local library groups, we’re developing an architecture for the site that will balance each unit’s desire for flexibility with the need for a sustainable infrastructure that provides our users with streamlined, easy access to our most popular resources.

    Over the coming weeks and months, our team will be busy reviewing wireframes and revisions from the team at NewCity. Once the wireframes are approved, we’ll go through the same process with mockups, which will incorporate more of the look and feel of the pages along with example content. The new site will be built out of components, rather than templated pages – this is a different way to think about building web pages that puts greater power in the hands of content creators and managers. It will allow for greater flexibility and easier updates than our current setup, and each unit will be able to create and maintain beautiful, useful, up-to-date pages that reflect their users’ needs. The project team will be learning about how to work with a component library during the wireframing/mockup phase, and more people will be brought in for training once the component library is fully developed and we’re building out the actual site content.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Website Redesign Project Update – September 2020

    The website redesign project team is close to completing baseline usability testing, examining how student and faculty users complete common tasks on our site. Through this study, we’re gaining a better understanding of where usability problems lie and how we should prioritize and present various pieces of content on the site. Listening to users speak their thought process aloud is very enlightening, allowing us to learn a lot about their site usage and perceptions even beyond the steps they take to complete the assigned tasks. We’ve even learned a bit about what we’re doing right!

    As with the brand and messaging survey, we were happy to see a huge amount of interest in usability testing across units and user communities, and we’ve gathered a lot of valuable data that is steering how we move forward with the design of each site. We’ve also gathered a pool of people who were unable to participate in this study but are interested in being involved in future studies, which will make our next outreach efforts more streamlined.

    Local Library Owner groups are currently meeting with NewCity to workshop some prototype ideas, informed by analyses of all the discovery and audience research data gathered to date: stakeholder interviews, analytics, brand and messaging workshops and surveys, and usability/perception testing. These prototypes are just pen-and-paper outlines so far; NewCity will take a lot of inspiration and ideas from them, then will develop some more detailed and concrete options for us to explore. Over the course of the fall semester, we’ll get a real sense of how the sites are going to look and function, and content development will begin.

    We’ll be presenting at a central forum sometime early in the fall semester, so look out for an announcement about a date and time for that presentation.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Website Redesign Project Update – July 2020

    Over the past few weeks, the web redesign team and the local library owners have been hard at work developing and deploying an audience research plan in collaboration with NewCity. A brand survey specific to each campus was widely distributed to faculty, staff, and students. The survey asked participants to choose words and images that best represent their library, and to reflect a bit on why they made those choices. We were thrilled to receive over 2,000 responses, along with a lot of thoughtful feedback that will help us make design decisions that are driven by local values and priorities.

    Baseline usability testing was launched at Camden earlier this week and will be conducted over the next few weeks at RBHS, New Brunswick, and Newark. The usability study is looking at how users reach our site and complete common tasks, and also asks some more general exploratory questions that will help us understand how local sites might most effectively convey local information along with access to centrally provided resources. The studies differ slightly from unit to unit, depending on what the local library owner groups have defined as the most important tasks for their key stakeholder groups. Given this baseline information, we’ll be able to measure whether user perception and performance around these key tasks have improved during development and after launch. We’ll be sharing the results of our audience research before too long.

    Through content analysis and interviews, NewCity has been digging into the ways content “happens” on our site. As a complex organization with many moving pieces and a vast amount of information to provide to a diverse body of users, content governance is a major challenge. This is going to be one of the most important aspects of the redesign: not just the site itself, but the development of a manageable, logical governance model that will enable us to maintain content that is accurate, fresh, and engaging.

    Once the audience research data has been analyzed, the local library owner groups will each meet again with NewCity to synthesize the results and begin workshopping ideas, informed by the brand survey and usability studies. If you’re interested in contributing to the work around your unit’s aspirations for a new site, please check in with your project team representative. They can provide access to a virtual whiteboard where we’re tracking thoughts about values, impact, audiences, and success measures. The information gathered there will be wrapped up into the workshops later this summer.

    As always, you’re welcome to reach out anytime with questions or comments. Send us an email: webservices@libraries.rutgers.edu.

  • Web Redesign Project Team Update – March 2020

    Participants sort cards during NewCity’s on-site visit in February.

    The website redesign project has gotten underway. We are currently in the discovery phase, which has several objectives: to identify stakeholders and learn about their goals for the project; to uncover our needs as local communities delivering shared resources; to understand our technical infrastructure and plan for the future; and to strategize future engagement with our internal and external audiences.

    The project is being managed as a joint venture between Rutgers University Libraries and NewCity, a website design company experienced with higher education, large non-profits, and commercial companies.  The project team, which is co-led by Antonio Barrera (Library Applications and Development) and Amy Kimura (SUS), includes members from across RUL: Doug Allen, Matt Badessa, Megan Lotts, John Powell, Jonathan Torres, and Yini Zhu.

    On February 11 and 12, 2020, three members of the team from NewCity came for an on-site visit. They met with the project team, Cabinet, and additional faculty and staff representatives from across the campuses to lead a number of activities designed to explore the needs of our stakeholders, communities, and to reflect on each unit’s similarities and differences, while considering success measures for this project. One of the main goals was for NewCity to get to know us so they can be sure they’re capturing the authentic voices of the libraries.

    NewCity will use these conversations and stakeholder interviews, together with a wealth of other qualitative and quantitative data, to build a comprehensive Discovery Report that they will deliver in the coming weeks. This report will help inform our site’s design and content strategy. We’ll make it available on the project team’s website, where you can also find other key documents related to the project.

    We plan to launch the new sites in June 2021 in order to minimize mid-year disruption. That gives us ample time to build the sites, provide training, and populate the new spaces with helpful, up-to-date content that best fits the need of each location and supports streamlined delivery of our shared resources. We will continue to update our project team site as we make progress, so check back frequently.