November 5, 2003 Leslie Gardner and Joe Chervenak National Renewable Energy Laboratory What Makes a Great Web R&D Web Site? Highlights of the Redesign

Outline  Where We Started  Support – What We Needed/How We Got It  Our Redesign Process  Putting It All Together  Lessons Learned  Future Plans  The Evolution of  What Makes a Great R&D Web Site?

Where We Started

nrel.gov Y2K

Start from scratch!

Support – What We Needed  A major redesign would require –More resources –Management buy-in

Support – How We Got It  Applied for funding as an NREL-wide strategic initiative –Initiative benefits all centers, offices, and programs –Management buy-in is a critical success factor –Web site receives more than 130,000 unique visitors every month (more than physical visitors to the lab) –Users are getting more sophisticated –Web site redesign is aligned with management priorities

Our Redesign Process  Analysis  Information Architecture  Design  Implementation  Project Timeline Note: We validated with managers throughout process

Analysis Phase

Process – Analysis  Statistics and Search Logs  Focus Groups  Site Objectives  Audience  Formal Benchmarking Study  Distilled to Four Big Ideas

Analysis – Statistics & Search Logs  Analyzed Web statistics and search logs to understand users needs  Findings : –Basic information on technologies is very popular –Users search on basic terms such as “solar energy” –Renewable resource data, online photo library, and publications are heavily used

Analysis – Focus Groups  Held internal focus groups to hear staff needs  Results: –They want researcher pages –They need help answering inquiries –They navigate the Web primarily by using Google search –They improved our site objectives –They identified sites for us to benchmark

Analysis – Site Objectives  Advance the Lab’s mission – research and technology development of renewable energy and energy efficiency  Showcase and promote our expertise, capabilities, current research, user facilities, and publications  Share our unique data and software tools  Provide nontechnical information for general audiences  Facilitate relationships with our stakeholders  Enhance the Lab’s institutional viability and image

Analysis – Primary Audiences  NREL’s primary public Web audiences –Business and industry –R&D and business partners (other labs, universities or private sector) –Public policy makers

Analysis – Secondary Audiences  NREL’s secondary public Web audiences –Consumers and general public –Educators and students –Media –Scientific and technical communities

Analysis – Tertiary Audiences  NREL’s tertiary public Web audiences –NREL staff –Investors

Analysis – Benchmarking Study  Initial review of over 200 Web sites –R&D organizations/labs –Universities –Think tanks & advocacy groups  Selected 44 sites for thorough study  Developed criteria based on site objectives –Example: How does the Web site showcase research projects, researchers, and accomplishments?

Analysis – Benchmarking Study  Benchmarking study: –Provided an abundant number of ideas –Gave us credibility with both management and staff

Analysis – Four Big Ideas 1.Emphasize research and researchers Jefferson Lab Jefferson Lab 2.Focus home page on our R&D areas CREST CREST 3.Include more information to address general inquiries/FAQs NOAA NOAA 4.Develop new templates to promote consistency and improve usability Brookhaven, INEEL BrookhavenINEEL

Information Architecture Phase

Process – Information Architecture Pieces and parts

Process – Information Architecture Information Architecture

Process – Information Architecture 1.Redesign goals based on analysis –Structure information by topics that users understand –Emphasize research and technology development –Consolidate all partnering information into one area 2.User interests and tasks

Process – Information Architecture 3. Detailed content inventory 4. Defined initial bins and labels Note: Primary navigation and terminology validated and refined throughout the process

Info Architecture – Approach

Info Architecture – Highlights  Clear goals and objectives greatly facilitated architecture process  Solved partnering with NREL by separating partnership information into R&D and applying technologies  IA team consulted on all iterations  Recommended consistent navigation and terminology on subsites

Design Phase

Process – Design A need for design

Design – New Look and Feel  Corporate image and branding  Leveraged knowledge from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy template project

Design – Wireframes  Worked with wireframes to illustrate concepts and get early validation  Managers didn’t understand impact of their decisions until they saw full mockups

Design – Wireframe Example Wireframes

Design – Wireframe Example

Design – Templates  Template for corporate pages (we own)  Template for R&D subsites (others own) –Developed common architecture based on site objectives –We piloted one R&D site to begin working out issues –Required lots of time to collaborate on new template that represents diverse research areas

Design – Templates Round Two

Design – Templates Round Three

Design – Templates A good template model

Design – Templates Subsites use the template

Implementation Phase

Process – Implementation  Content  Coding  Worked with individual centers, offices and programs to redesign their sites into new template

Project Timeline

Putting It All Together

Lessons Learned  Plan for the unexpected  Trying to lump all the ways we want users to partner and work with the Lab into one category was difficult  Staff is struggling with topic view  Hard to keep everybody happy –“Where’s my stuff?”

Lessons Learned Where’s my stuff?

Lessons Learned  Management values benchmarking data from other credible organizations  Associate Director buy-in was critical  Validation is tedious and costly, but buy-in is priceless  Hit ‘em high, hit ‘em low, and hit ‘em in the middle  Individual criticisms and input must be heard, but decisions must be made from Lab-wide point of view

Future Phase

Future Plans  We now have a 3-year plan (not 1-year)  We want to implement these ideas: –Develop FAQs –Formulate NREL’s research history –Use more multimedia –Develop comprehensive Information on all user, test, and analytic facilities –Expand technology basics information –Conduct usability testing

The Evolution of nrel.gov

Our New Site nrel.gov 2003

Our New Site

What Makes a Great R&D Web Site  No definitive formula yet, but all Web best practices apply to R&D sites  “Great” depends on the degree of how the site aligns with management and user needs  Formal benchmarking study is a good way to get ideas and identify current best practices for R&D Web information  Because we’re InterLab, how can we collectively use the Web to support R&D in our organizations?