How do we create a more usable R&D web site with our knowledge of opening archives and hypertext narratives?
Project from 2012 - 2013
What we are doing
Starting work in the summer of 2012, we were tasked to "refresh" the website of our department. Our initial brief was to not only to refresh its current look and feel, but also to look into what could make it truly a "world class" R&D website.
Why it matters
The previous iteration of the website was not only starting to look a little dated, it was also a source of frustrations, both for our R&D teams and the visitors to the site.
Our process and tools made it painful and slow to add or update information about our work in a timely fashion, and the limited navigation mechanisms as well as the lack of functioning search engine meant that a lot of the information on the site was out of reach.
Our Goals
Based on discussions within and outside of R&D, we came up with a set of objectives:
- Refresh the look and feel of the site, one that would still proudly announce the technological expertise of the department, but without being so literal about green-fiber-optics and other kinds of cables
- Showcase both the breadth of research and prototyping being done by the department at any given time, as well as the depth of knowledge available in our nearly 70 years of publications
- Make it easier for R&D teams to add and update information about their work
Outcomes
You are looking at it.
How it works
Our Internet Research and Future Services not only tapped into its in-house expertise in web development, we actually tried to put into practice the insights gathered by the whole department over the years, notably in opening large archives (such as with the The World Service Radio Archive project, or in hyper-linked narrative paths, which we had explored in the Mythology Engine project.
