CatsAndLassos.com

Analyzing a Site for Upgrade (things could be worse)

I'm snowed in and analyzing an existing site for a client so we can give the content an overhaul and come up with a content management strategy to minimize maintenance overhead. This is a tedious process that involves clicking links to see where they go, and making notes. It's also a job best done by one person since part of the goal is to recognize areas of content commonality and especially potential commonality.

I started by using SEO Xray to export internal and external links to the lo-tech Excel ss i use to capture my analysis; while this isn't exhaustive (doesn't give a clue about links to files and applications for example) it's a start, and lets me assess the anchor text while I'm at it. I cleared my History first so I can see what pages I've visited and I'm doing the click/review/write tango, using two monitors to maintain my tenuous grip on sanity. I'm also using Google Webmaster Tools link: function to generate input for a start on a context diagram to assess the impact of changes to my site; I'll manually add systems, data sources and libraries that the link: tool doesn't see. And then I'll reconcile the content audit and context diagrams with the site map I generated in Visio.

The first pass through the site is quick-and-dirty to get the lay of the land. Later I'll do a deeper dive, and then cross-ref and collate the audit spreadsheet for areas of commonality, and then look again trying to spot gaps; the stuff that isn't there can be as important as what is when you're migrating and upgrading content...I suggest accompanying all this with a really strong pot of the devil's brew.

Analyze *this*

I'm knee deep in the tedious task of analyzing existing content in a client's website in preparation for a redesign and migration. I've been casting about for easier ways than "click link/read content/make notes"...the upshot is that there's no easy way, but a few things can make the process less painful.

Google Webmaster Tools will index your site and give you a list of links back (great for assessing impact of changes!), and (after you demonstrate site ownership) will give you detail on internal links, metadata and some web analytics. SEO XRay for FireFox will let you export a .csv file of links out, with URL and anchor text, which can give you a head start on a detailed content audit.

Twitter Days to a Better You?

I admit that when I first heard about it, the concept of Twitter
utterly eluded me; an opportunity for monomaniacs to broadcast their
every pompous move to an unenthralled universe, I figured.

Twitter is one of those things--like wire ties--that initially lack
luster but whose utility gradually reveals itself over time. Yesterday
I used Twitter to remind myself to pay off a credit card, and it
occurred to me that twitter updates lend themselves perfectly to the
kind of accountability pushed by twelve-step programs. They can
provide a fearless moral inventory that can be maintained
minute-by-minute and a confessional that can be broadcast to the
absolution or condemnation of a wide audience, or alternatively can be
a fast way to track dietary misdeeds for later repentance (and
calorie-counting). A quick Google indicates that this
may be an idea with legs; folks appear to be using Twitter to keep
themselves honest at everything from quitting drinking to losing
weight to maintaining a consistent writing schedule. If you're still
keeping a New Year's Resolution, you may want to give it a try.

RSS-ify anything

Dapper

Finding a Common Language

Ever grapple with finding areas of overlap among users with disparate perspectives and vocabularies? (That's what they're paying you for, isn't it?)

Something to try: conduct a mind-mapping exercise with the separate groups, assimilate the terms from these sessions into a (plain text) file--MindMeister 's export function can help-- and then pull the file into TagCrowd for a tag cloud that you can analyze to assess results across groups.

Practical application: determine site navigation scheme by having users free-associate conceptual terms to arrive at link names that are most relevant to the most users, as illustrated by the tag cloud.

(Impractical application: analyzing candidates' speeches for inanity)

A new social networking distinction...hmmm...

Is Facebook's distinction between social networking and, for lack of better term, social reinforcement genuine or contrived? I see a whole new philosophy of "social network hygiene" afoot here…

Food for thought; when there's cognitive dissonance between business and user requirements.

Why didn't I think of that?

An elegantly simple idea I wish I'd come up with: Brainwriting kicks brainstorming's ass.

Bauhaus for the New Millenium

Should requirements-gathering be treated more like market research? It flies in the face of everything I hold dear, but on the other hand scope creep kills more projects than almost anything....

The article is intended for practitioners who work with individuals who have suffered brain injury, but LearNet has some interesting suggestions for helping concrete thinkers to go abstract:

• Thinking out loud, asking for alternate ways to think about a concept, articulating inferences, reflecting what's heard in a structured way
• Talking through the thinking process, describing the processes of making and discarding analogies, for example
• "Gradually remov(ing) the supports" by transforming detailed models into simpler conceptual models in front of the audience