Agile Development and New Website

Hi folks,

First of all, thanks to you all for your patience and input during our last Thursday (6/14)meeting. It was a bit stressful but I think we broke through a log jam w.r.t. understanding our priorities and goals for the website redesign.

Nick and I met with Jim Fudge on Friday (6/15) to dicuss agile development practices and project management in an agile environment. Jim was very helpful and both Nick and I came away from that meeting feeling much more optimistic.

With that said, here's the key points of our new approach using the new homepage or landing page as our first mini-project as part of the overall website redesign:

• identify our "customer" - Gina as library rep
• define the project to be completed - new homepage (single page) with links to existing internal pages.
• define the scope - include content links defined by Gina in a sustainable framework (CSS and DHTML)
• assign roles and responsibilities - Gina is customer rep who defines content for new homepage with input from staff and Nick and Alice are the programmers.
• deadline for public release - end of July
• create prototype of homepage to start design iterations - first prototype available to show Gina on July 5.
• refine prototype with iterations - 2 weeks
• add link on current homepage to new homepage to let patrons and staff try it out - 4th week of July
• general release - end of July

Once we've completed this mini-project of the new landing page then we'll define additional mini-projects (reference pages, events calendar, childrens pages, etc...), prioritize them and then work through the steps outlined above.

Our goal with this approach is to have many releases of mini-projects with lots of opportunity for iteration and feedback from staff and patrons.

Thanks, Alice

Dreamweaver Templates & Mock-ups

I have been playing around at Dreamweaver Templates. I have a question about the two views--Adobe Photoshop and HTML. Can you tell me what impact these differences have for us? Is it just that one shows a template created using Photoshop and the other using HTML and we can use both of these I'm assuming--it's just how they were created?

Events Calendar Issues

Hi folks,

It is very important that we make a decision regarding an on-line events calendaring system.

The current on-line calendar system requires a disproportionate amount of computer services staff time to maintain. I use the word "disproportionate" to reflect what we see on the usage statistics of the web site each month. Based on these stats, it is clear that more staff effort needs to be spent addressing issues related to the use of the webOpac and the on-line databases. These are by far the most heavily used areas of the web site.

So, what are our options for reducing computer services staff time spent on maintaining the on-line events calendar while also providing our patrons with an easy-to-use and informative on-line calendar AND accomodating the needs of staff content providers AND allowing for an edit and approval process for content?

There are currently three options being considered:
1. III Program Registration product
2. custom built on-line events calendar
3. customized 3rd party events calendar

III Program Registration
The III product can be viewed on the Westerville Public Library site or the Scottsdale Public Library site.

Advantages:
1. integrated with the catalog so searchable in the webOpac
2. registration options for limited space availability
3. conflict resolution of event locations
4. approval and editing capability of event content through a Millennium client
5. product maintenance through III
6. option to enter events far into the future
7. known cost for product and maintenance
8. adheres to microformats standards for harvesting and formatting events outside of catalog

Disadvantage:
1. III proprietary product that is constrained by their license agreement

Custom built on-line calendar
A custom built on-line calendar would look and behave similar to the Arts Resource calendaring system. It would use a SQL server database backend with a ColdFusion and HTML programmed front end.

Advantage:
1. more control over functionality and requirements

Disadvantages:
1. more control means more responsibility
2. not integrated with the catalog so there cannot be a unified search
3. unknown hidden development and maintenance costs

Customized 3rd-party events calendar
A 3rd party solution would be something like the E.vanced product (http://www.e-vancedsolutions.com/) or the Trumba product (http://www.trumba.com/connect/default.aspx).

Advantage:
1. out-of-the-box functionality
2. maintainence and updates provided as part of license agreement

Disadvantages:
1. unknown level of customizability and control
2. non-integration with catalog search
3. out-of-the-box customization that may require a lot of additional computer staff time
4. upfront cost vs. unknown hidden customization costs

Please review these options and let me know your thoughts and if there are additional advantages/disadvantages that I overlooked.