Design & UX Discovery Workshop at DrupalCon N'awlins
We engage our clients in a very similar, albeit more expansive workshop to immerse ourselves in their brand and project needs at the beginning of an engagement.
Posts in Information Architecture
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404 Not Found: The Monster Under Your Bed
If you are working on a website redesign, 404s are the very real monsters under your bed. Ignore them, and they will wreak havoc on your website’s traffic. Worst of all, by the time you realize what’s happening it may already be too late.
Drupal Permissions Done Right
You've been doing Drupal permissions wrong for years (probably). And the fix is pretty simple. The Problem: Drupal permissions are an administrator's nightmare. The settings page is a daunting wall of nondescript checkboxes with overlapping meaning and lots of duplication. This makes bugs hard to find and permissions hard to manage. Worst of all, this user experience poses a security risk. It's just too tempting to scroll and check box after box without thinking too deeply about the consequences.
Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies Redesign
We recently helped launch Stanford Online High School (OHS), the debut product within a distributed architecture for rolling out individual sites for Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies.
Related reading: Managing Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies with a Pantheon Custom Upstream
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Defining a Technical Architecture Part 2: Automation and Rapid Prototyping
A technical architecture document is not only helpful for planning, but can also be used to automate the creation of content types and other site elements. This cuts down on development time, allowing for rapid prototyping. This process plays well into a content first approach to web development and helps the client understand the power of structured content.
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Defining a Technical Architecture Part 1: Creating Structured Content from Wireframes
As information architects, we love tools that help clients think about the structure of their content. One which we’ve found particularly helpful is what we call our Technical Architecture document. It’s a spreadsheet that defines the structure of the site. This approach is not uncommon, especially within the Drupal community; however, we have promoted this spreadsheet from information architecture tool to site generator. By automating a once manual process, we’ve introduced some really exciting opportunities around rapid prototyping and efficient product iteration.
Collaboration Using Google Drive
Google has developed a wide range of products to help teams collaborate on projects. Here at Aten, we use Google Drive to foster collaboration between Aten employees and the awesome organizations we work with on a daily basis.
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October 23rd: Content Strategy Workshop for Non-Profits
Most non-profits are great about establishing a vision, mission, and goals for their organizations. All too often though, that strategic work ends up divorced from an organization’s online presence and communications approach. When you’re in the throes of the non-profit hustle and staff are strapped for time with deadlines looming, the website, blog, or Twitter account is oftentimes the first thing to be neglected. While this reality is understandable, an organization’s content is crucial to its success.
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Are We There Yet? A Practical Guide to User-Centered Design
Here at Aten we advocate user-centered design as the essential methodology for building digital experiences that matter. We sell it in pitches. We focus quickly on audience during kick-off meetings—and practically every meeting after. We structure our process around personas and user stories, and measure success in terms of user acceptance.
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Testing Navigation
Providing clear and compelling navigation is key to a site’s success. Testing that navigation with an online survey for real users to complete ensures that you'll answer your audience's questions.
