Earlier this month the Web and Content Strategy Team (WCST) finished re-setting our team priorities for 2020. 

This week I want to share a high level overview of our priorities for the rest of the calendar year. 

Improve the content authoring experience

Why is this a priority? 
A more intuitive and consistent authoring environment will make it easier and faster to add and edit content.

Benefits: 

• Easier to add and edit content
• Reduce user confusion and anxiety
• Encourage more Extension employees to use the system
• Decrease training and support time 

One-on-one design help for county landing pages 

Why is this a priority? 
A strong web presence at the county level is a leadership priority, and helps promote your local programming and activities.

Benefits: 

• One-on-one with a web designer will improve page design and accessibility
• Provides an open forum to get your website questions answered
• Creates a consistent look and feel between counties making it easier for audience to find local programming and activities
• Helps the WCST understand what your goals and needs are

Analytics, user research, metrics related to content strategy

Why is this a priority? 

Helps content teams make data-informed decisions by focusing on content that meets the needs of audiences.

Benefits: 

• Helps content authors to identify gaps in content
• Provides content teams insight into what site users are looking for
• Highlights what content is successful and what needs improvement

Integration of CMS and CRM for Digital Engagement

Why is this a priority? 

This is the start of component 3 of Extension’s Digital Strategy. Initial focus will be on delivery of e-newsletters.

Benefits: 

• More efficient management of subscriber lists
• Ability to measure click-through rate, conversions, etc
• Increase enrollments in workshops and courses
• See Mark Kindred’s excellent blog post from June 23rd for more information

 

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Have you heard of the WayBackMachine? It is one of the many resources from the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. The WayBackMachine has a collection of 446 billion web pages. Want to know what the Lane County website looked like in 2003? Go to https://web.archive.org/ and enter a URL, and browse through the timeline select date. 

The Extension website has come a long way over the years. Here are some screenshots from the Extension website over the years.

OSU Extension homepage (circa 2002) This is an example of old school hand-coded HTML, uploaded via FTP designed for 800x600 px. screens.
OSU Extension homepage (circa 2003) Designed for 15" 1024x768 px. screens
OSU Extension homepage (circa 2006) This design incorporated Macromedia Contribute which featured a visual (WYSIWYG) editor. Eliminated need to write HTML or use a FTP program.
OSU Extension homepage (circa 2013) Built using Drupal 6. A move in the right direction, but mostly used as a content delivery platform.
OSU Extension homepage (circa 2020) We are now using Drupal 8 and fully utilizing the power of the CMS with structured content.