Website Design
This page outlines the process, standards and guidelines that have been followed
when creating the CMS Consultants website itself. As the site continues to evolve, we will keep this process report up to date. We hope it serves as a resource for CMS Consultants members who are planning websites.
Results of the Website Survey
October 26, 2006
CMS Consultants is working on a new website. The new design will be based on the results of our latest website survey (.pdf) that Ann Rockley and her NextGeneration Website Team executed.
In addition to the general information on this page, additional details can be
found on the following pages:
The original design
CMS Consultants website design began with our first working site in March 2004. The original site was aimed at collaboration and knowledge management. It was a productive toolset for organizing our new association.
It is still available at www.cmsconsultants.org/indexOld.html.
That site had characteristics and functions that are preserved in the new design:
- Logo design and tagline
- A compact logo spelling out content management professionals and using CMS Consultants for short name
- No redundancy with cmprofessionals.org domain name
- A tagline - a content management community of practice
- Left-navigation system.
- Menu with dynamic sub-menus
- Breadcrumbs-style navigation on content pages
- Membership management tools
- Home page login
- Member registration via secure shopping cart
- Database with several privilege levels
- Editing privileges on a per-page basis
- Administrator/Publisher, Editor, and Reporter/Writer
- A member directory
- Member pages including individual blogs
- Content management tools
- "Edit this page" skyWriter access with authentication
- Source and WYSIWYG editing
- Conversion of text and Word to HTML
- Workflow notifications - page edits reported to others
- Versioning - archiving with rollback
- Version control - check-in/check-out conflict detection
- Comments/Discussion on every page
- Controlled access
- Main pages visible to public
- Private, members-only pages require login
- A knowledge base of discussions and decisions
- Forms generation for member surveys, polls
- A balloting system to collect votes by the membership
- Issue-based group blog tool
- A chronological record of working group action items
- A knowledge base of CM Resources
- Community mailing lists
- The new members-only cmpros list
- A new contentmanagers list
- The industry-standard CMS list
- A calendar feed from the CMS Review calendar at CMSCalendar.com
- Online eMeetings technology
- A shared presentation tool
- Any member can control presentation
- A conference phone bridge
But the old site had limitations which were rejected in the new design:
- A simple three-frame arrangement
- Top-banner, left-nav, content
- Content pages were simple html - no templates
- Frames-based navigation system
- An automated left-navigation panel
- Links replaced content in the main content frame
- Content pages were not easily bookmarked
The new design
The new site has multiple templates created by Stuart Guest-Smith and Lee Sinclair. The main home page template uses global-top navigation and several content blocks arranged in a standard three-column format. Six main menus have drop-down sub-menus that link to general pages incorporating both global-top and left-navigation panels. These pages have two columns of local content, with only one column for calendars, the job board, and the shopping cart.
Mockup Template B
- New professional look
- Shaded blue top banner
- Tools links along top
- Logo and tagline in center
- Main menus along the bottom of blue
- Mid-green search/login bar below main menus
- News-style content blocks arranged in three panes
- A large 2-column graphic image with message overlays
- New global footer
- New site architecture
- Content inventory developed six main sections
- About CMS Consultants
- Membership
- Resources
- Education
- Events
- Organization
- Templated pages share global-top banner structures
- Content elements (news items) can be reused
- New "level 2" pages
- Each section has a section editor and pages editors
- Main-menu tab reverses color for section
- Left-navigation in each section coordinates with global section menu
- Supports understanding of site model, mind map
- New file/page naming convention
- /Membership/howToJoin.html replaced by /membership/how_to_join
- Simple and easy-to-guess URLs
- URL mirrors file path name in clean consistent architecture
- All pages easily bookmarked
- Better compliance and accessibility
- Responds to browser font sizes
- Wide browser compatibility
- Alt and title attributes
- New "edit-this-element" interface
- Editable content surrounded by dashed rectangle on mouseover
- Control-click to edit (authentication challenge)
- Logo competition
2004 Home Page
2005 Home Page Redesign
During 2005 and early 2006 the home page changed to a two-column design to increase the width of text for feature stories. A Breaking News feature had an automatic date. A Quick Links drop-down menu was added.
Late in the year, the banner incorporated personalization, with different pages for visitors and for members.
Visitor version
Member version, with personalization
2006 Redesign
In June 2006 the banner was redesigned by Rahel Bailie, Director of Marketing, to use a new standardized logo and a new tagline.
Following suggestions by website committee members Rana Allam and Lynda Chiotti, the home page was changed from two-columns to three (thus returning to the 2004 design). Member Website links were moved nearer the top.
Dynamic HTML elements include the five latest blog posts from CMS Consultants bloggers and the three newest posts to the Resource Library.
Page last edited July 30, 2006 by Bob Doyle.
and a page turning image 
