Tips for Surviving Go Mobile – a Guest Post by Kate Austin

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Kate AustinKate Austin is an Information Officer at the Careers Service, her role involves providing one-to-one information and advice to students and recent graduates. As part of the Information Team she researches, develops and edits content for the Careers Service website.

The Careers Service site has recently been through the Go Mobile process. In this post Kate shares the Go Mobile experiences of the Careers team.

The move to a mobile platform was a huge project for us. The Careers Service website covers anything and everything about careers and employability, with users including students, graduates, prospective students, employers and staff.

As you can imagine with all that information our site was huge – so big it has now been broken into four different websites! Now we are through the process and our new website is live, read on for our tips on surviving your own Go Mobile project.

Allow yourself plenty of time

Make sure you set aside plenty of time for your Go Mobile move. It’s a big project and I can promise everything will take a lot longer than you think. Allow extra time to tackle any bumps in the road or issues that come along. When our website went live, it wasn’t perfect – we had problems with broken links and redirects, issues with images and inconsistencies on our new occupations site. Planning in a little extra time for us to check our site before going live would have been a huge bonus.

Consider images

We soon realised the images on our old Careers Service website were not going to work on the new Go Mobile website. Our images were a little outdated and didn’t work well in the new content types, like mastheads.

If, like us, you need to have a photoshoot, make sure you brief the photographer on the types of images you’re going to need. I’d suggest having photos taken which would work well as mastheads. These need to be high quality, large photos with the focus of the image on the right-hand side. If you have your photos taken as mastheads you can always crop down the images to suit other content types later on.

If you’re unable to have a photoshoot, then make use of the University photo library. Thinking creatively and doing a bit of digging can help you find images to suit most pages. For the Careers Service Occupations website, we even managed to find images which represented particular sectors. On our Education pages, for example, we used an image from a PGCE teaching class. We were also able to use an image from a Geomatics course field trip for our page which focusses on careers in the built environment.

Use the demo site

The new content types allow you to display the information on your pages in a range of different ways.

When you’re in the planning process, it’s much easier to figure out what style will work best for your content once you’ve seen the different types in action. So have a look at the demo site and websites which have already gone through the Go Mobile process.

Make use of the training sessions

The training sessions from the Corporate Web team are informative and useful. The T4 training session in particular is great as it’s hands-on and practical.

At the training sessions, you’re also introduced to handy software such as:

  • Hemingway App for writing and editing content
  • SiteImprove for identifying broken links
  • Fotor which is great for cropping and resizing images

Once you’ve finished your training and you have access to T4, try and get straight on and give it a go. Our team had T4 training a few months before being able to edit the new website, meaning we initially had to rely a lot on the handbook which did slow us down.

Ask for feedback

Make sure you get feedback from the users of your website. When we’ve had any problems or glitches, it’s been helpful to have these pointed out as it means we can fix any issues quickly.

We’ve also had some great feedback from students and staff. Most people have commented that:

  • the website is easier to use and navigate
  • information can be found much quicker
  • the website generally looks a lot better (and not like it’s from the 80s!)

Team Update: 9 – 20 May 2016

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Go Mobile programme

We held a ‘Sprint retrospective’ in the team last week. It was an opportunity to review our processes and actions, so we can be flexible during Go Mobile. It means we can improve things we feel didn’t work so well, and check our processes are on track for success.

Fen spent most of this week proofing Marine Science and Technology, and migrating the Student Services into T4 – the latter going live today. She’s now working on the Website Information and Feedback site, which should be ready to go live in Batch 3.

Jane is working with Accommodation, finalising the restructuring of key sections to help people find the things they look for most – quickly. The enthusiastic Accommodation team had loads of great ideas following their Go Mobile training, so Jane has helped work these up. Now we just have to build it!

Steve has been liaising with Civil Engineering & Geosciences to manage the transfer of their site to T4 and working on a few final decisions for content on the Marine and Mechanical Engineering websites.

Catherine and Emily have been working on the final content for the Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia site ready for their editor to start work next week.

Emma C and Andrew have been editing and proofing content on the Geography, Politics and Sociology site to get it ready to go live today.

Emily’s been proofing the Mechanical Engineering site, which will also go live later today.

Jane also met with the Pre-Arrival team, to give them a heads-up that Go Mobile is heading their way – they are scheduled for Batch 2.

Design and Technical developments

Catherine has started creating colour schemes for the Batch 2 sites and did some browser testing on the search facility for the new Clearing website.

Peter has been setting up some of the Batch 2 sites in their pre-migration template ready for the content team to start tagging them for migration into T4.

Google Tag Manage has been updated to send event tracking information for the T4 buttons (both action and link types) and scroll tracking. It’ll show how far people will scroll down a particular page.

Campaigns and other developments

Emma C met with colleagues from the Loyola Center to discuss adding information about their programme to the Study Abroad and Exchanges website.

Fen shared a list of content experts to follow on Twitter, and some tips and tricks for using bold text.

Training and support

Anne delivered another T4 CMS workshop this week (we’ve been running this session for a whole year!), and is preparing some bespoke training for 2 June.

We’ve received 31 support requests through the NU Service Helpdesk and have resolved 15 of them.

Andrew has been working on news slides for the T4 media management training, looking at the optimisation and use of PDF documents.

Plans for the next few weeks

We’re starting work on our next batch of sites, moving from the planning phase to assessing the audits, restructuring and preparing for migration into T4.

A Quick Guide to… Bold

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Bold text makes web pages easier to read and more SEO friendly.

You should use bold to highlight key phrases in your copy. There should be enough to help users scan the page, but not so much that it loses impact.

This quick guide will help to clarify why, when and how to use bold text.

Why to use bold

Nearly 80% of users will scan a web page before they read it; they’ll jump around the page, looking for things that catch their eye.

This means that content must communicate key messages at a glance, by drawing attention to important bits of information. One way to do this is to create visual pointers using bold text. The impression created by these visual pointers tells both humans and computers (like Google) what to expect from the rest of the content.

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To boldly go… Both humans and computers respond well to bold text.

When to use bold

You should bold text that:

  • communicates important information
  • emphasises key points
  • makes sense out of context
  • complements your titles and headings

You should avoid bolding:

  • entire sentences or paragraphs
  • too many individual words

Bold text can be used on pages and in news items.

How to use bold

Finish creating content for a page before you start adding bold to it. Then, pick out the most important pieces of information and make them bold.

An easy way to check if you’ve used bold effectively is to collect your bold phrases into one list. If you gave this list to a user, would they get the right impression about that page?

10 Content Experts to Follow on Twitter

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So, you’ve learned how to write for the web, manage media files and navigate T4. Now you’ve got the keys to your shiny new responsive website, you probably want to start creating some great new content to populate it with. This is a good time to delve a little deeper into the world of content design.

If you know where to look, social media can be a treasure trove of resources for those who write and design for the web. Following experts on Twitter is a great place to start, so we’ve rounded up 10 great accounts to share with you:

@katekiefer
As director of communications at Mail Chimp, Kate Kiefer Lee knows a thing or two about creating great content. She’s also co-author of one of our favourite books: Nicely Said, Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose.

@nicoleslaw
Nicole Fenton is a digital strategist, editor and a teacher at The School of Visual Arts in New York City. She’s the other half of the Nicely Said team.

@gerrymcgovern
If you’re wondering how to make your website users happy, Gerry McGovern is sure to have some good advice. He’s been consulting, speaking and writing about web content since 1994, and is widely regarded as a leading authority on customer experience.

@coschedule
The CoSchedule team produces a tonne of great resources for content managers (we love their handy Headline Analyzer). Follow them on Twitter to receive free guides, articles and tips.

@amythibodeau
Writer and strategist Amy Thibodeau is a pro when it comes to crafting great user interfaces. Ever thought about the tone and clarity of your error messages? How about the wording on your website’s nav buttons? Check out Amy’s Twitter feed and blog for some thought-provoking discussion.

@karenmcgrane
In her own words (and we certainly agree), Karen McGrane ‘makes the web more awesome’. She’s the author of Content Strategy for Mobile and Going Responsive, and co-host of the Responsive Web Design podcast.

@zeldman
Jeffrey Zeldman has been working on the web since 1995. His Twitter feed is a powerhouse of fascinating news and discussion. Aside from his own words of wisdom, Jeffrey shares articles from leading thinkers on the cutting edge of content strategy and web development.

@abby_the_IA
Struggling to make sense of a complex navigation system? Unsure where new information should go? Abby Covert is an expert when it comes to Information Architecture, and author of the book How to Make Sense of Any Mess. Follow her Twitter feed and blog for tips on how to improve the clarity and usability of your site.

@heydesigner
Hey Designer is a curated feed of resources for people who work on websites. From discussing the pros and cons of using icons instead of copy, to sharing top tips on writing words that SEO-bots will love – Hey Designer will populate your Twitter feed with an array of useful links.

@dlichaw
Writer, educator and consultant Donna Lichaw pioneers smart, simple methods that drive user engagement. She is the author of The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love. Follow her for advice on how to design digital content that’ll speak to your audience.

Anyone we missed out? Let us know in the comments below.

The Role of the Go Mobile Project Manager

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The aim of the Go Mobile Project Manager is to make everyone’s job as straightforward and focused as possible.

It’s no secret that a website development project is a complex process. When you’re managing client expectations, conscious of workloads of different people and trying to meet deadlines, it can feel like you’re trying to juggle chainsaws with one hand tied behind your back. That’s why good project management is essential for success.

We achieve this through good:

  • communication
  • planning
  • teamwork

Good project management

Here are some project management tips that help to keep the project on track.

Kick it off right. Work hard to get parameters and expectations agreed at the start.

Communicate. Agree milestones and deadlines throughout the project and keep everyone informed of progress.

Be flexible but realistic. If things change try to accommodate them but not to the detriment of agreed deadlines.

Standardise on what works well. If a particular approach saves time or makes the content build easier then make it part of the workflow.

Go Mobile

Your Go Mobile project manager will contact you well in advance of the start of your site’s development. This conversation alerts you to the resources required, timescales involved and process of change. We’ll ask you to consider:

  • who will be involved
  • if there’s any redundant pages that can be deleted
  • sourcing new photography
  • booking training on writing and planning web content, and how to use the new content management system

This is a good opportunity to devote some time to looking through your website and making decisions about structure and content.

The project manager for your Go Mobile development will be your point of contact and the person who will steer your site through the process. They will be like a GP who checks the heartbeat of the project at regular intervals. If there are any high blood pressure readings they’ll make sure they’re treated accordingly. The goal is to deliver a clear and useful website for your users.