You may (or may not) have noticed that this blog has been pretty quiet the last few weeks. Well, we have a legitimate excuse, we swear!
The OIT Web Communications team (e.g. Alisha and I) have been working on coverting the entire OIT website from its current static html form to one powered by a content management system – WordPress Multiuser (WPMU). We’ve taken our time with this project carefully evaluating every requirement for each OIT Unit and have come to appreciate the overall flexibility, ease of use, and stability of this platform.
To implement this transition, we will need to have some website downtime so we can shift the domain name (oit.wvu.edu) to the WordPress driven version of the site and make sure the switch has not broken any links to files, etc. To minimize the impact of the site being down, we’re planning on implementing the change on Sunday, June 28.
One thing that will need to be taken into account (as with any switch in platform such as this) is that it will invariably break links that people may have had bookmarked, referenced in emails, documentation, on websites, etc. We will redirect broken links to an updated sitemap, however.
Overall the website will have the same design and content, but there have been some changes/improvements to the look & feel in places to “freshen” the appearance a little. We are planning to start working on a redesign for next year, though.
During this last week while we’re tying up loose ends and tweaking, I would love to get some feedback and… well… help. Alisha and I have been looking at this for months and as you know when you are working on something for a long time, you can easily overlook things. We’d really appreciate it if you could look the site over while it’s still “in the wings” and let us know about anything that we’ve overlooked or that you simply don’t like. Kudos are ok, too, but I want to know anything and everything you spot that is off, so we can tackle it. (Suggestions on new content are welcome too.)
So if you have a few minutes, please visit http://wpmu.oit.wvu.edu and look around.
Also, I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have about the website, WordPress, WPMU or whatever. Just post to the comments. Thanks!
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Thanks Dustin – I totally agree with you about the fluid vs. fixed width issue. It’s something I want to correct with the new design we’ll start working on for next year. The thing that keeps tripping me up is the navigation menu. I’m not sure how I can incorporate it (all that info, rather) and still have a content area that the individual units within OIT will be comfortable using. The nice thing about having it in WPMU though is much easier theme management. So we have some flexibility now with the platform that we did not have before.
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I like the revised homepage it looks good. And I am really impressed with your use of Wordpress, I have had some experience with it in the past and I must say it appears the your new site is working like a charm.
I do have some feedback concerning your current design (I do not want to sound very critical but this is an issues that I have with the design as is):
Use a fixed width layout for the website instead of a fluid layout. Users have an easier time reading text if the columns are between 45 and 75 characters for (see http://www.webtypography.net/), so there would never be any need for the column to exceed this width. Also, a fixed width ensures consistency throughout WVU sites and helps maintain the integrity of the design regardless of the platform on which it is viewed. I the column size of the OIT Blog works alot better than the OIT main site.
Other than that I thing your site is great!