Summary: Moving ‚from single launch to continuous improvement‘ is the ninth corporate website trend we identified. This post is part of a series of blog posts in which we look at trends for corporate websites.
It used to be the case that corporate websites were launched and then forgotten about for the next five years until the site was dated and another relaunch was necessary. Of course, content changed, but functionality and information architecture were hardly touched in between the relaunches. As developments in the networked world move faster and faster, a single big-bang launch every five years is not a viable strategy anymore. Instead, we will see continuous improvements to corporate websites, more exploring and testing of valuable functionality for stakeholders.
To ensure continuous improvements are possible you will need to make sure that you have an appropriate technology platform. One that can be extended and customised without compromising the performance and stability. There are hundreds of CMS options out there, both proprietary and open-source, making the right selection a challenge. If you work in the External Communication department make sure you work closely with the IT department to select the right platform. However, you should lead! Previous approaches were often only a tickbox exercise. Some IT departments would tweak the list of functional requirements in a way that the CMS came out first, that would best fit the IT landscape, could be best supported by IT or was in use at the company already. But that CMS might not be useful and usable for content editors that need to use the tool on a daily basis.
It is highly important to avoid making the CMS selection a tickbox exercise only. A hybrid approach works much better. Together with IT draft a list of requirements for security, licenses, compliance etc. From that you can create a shortlist of relevant CMS platforms. In a next step document so-called user scenarios. These are scenarios written in plain English explaining what a certain user needs to accomplish. You create these scenarios based on interviews with stakeholders. Here is one example that I used in a client project:
Henry is part of the <Company X> Corporate Communications team. Today he needs to publish a news item on the corporate website. He has prepared the content in a Word document including text, pictures and a table. Once he has moved the content from the Word document into the CMS he searches the media library for relevant assets, finds a picture and includes it in the article. A widget shows him related content, from which he selects one item. As with all <Company X> related content on the corporate website the article needs to be in German and English. In addition to the version in German, Henry creates an English version. He saves both versions and triggers a workflow (optional) that informs Alice, Henry’s manager, of new content in the CMS. She receives a notification and accesses Henry’s article.
This is a very common user scenario for content editors. When investigating different CMS platforms, ask vendors or your IT department to walk you and your team through such user scenarios using the different systems. That way you will get a much better feel of which system helps you accomplish the tasks best. Too often vendors and IT departments highlight functionality that is not relevant to your workflows and thus makes the use of the systems just more complex and cumbersome. Concentrate on what you need the system to accomplish instead of all the bells and whistles it offers. For my client we decided to go for a CMS framework instead of a complete CMS platform. It is more suitable for the requirements identified, does not incur additional license cost and provides the client with a platform that he can build upon in the coming years.
In this blog post series I looked at a number of trends for corporate websites. Many of them require a substantial mindshift. This shift and its implications will take time. It’s nothing that will be accomplished and implemented over night. If you are tasked with the relaunch or further development of your organisation’s corporate website you may want to consider the trends discussed and start pushing the envelope. Start with expressing your organisation’s objectives and corporate communication strategy. What is it that you want to achieve? In a next step, research in-depth your target audience and understand how you can attract but also help them. Consider the corporate website trends I talked about in this series and start brainstorming relevant functionality. Some of those ideas might not be applicable right away, simply because your corporate culture or processes are not ready for them yet. Start with the quick wins, but plot all ideas on a timeline. That way you develop a roadmap that can be used for the continuous improvement after your last big-bang launch of your corporate website. Good luck and enjoy the ride!
This blog post is part of a series of posts in which we delve into the trends for corporate website that we have identified. The series:
- From static to real-time information
- From text to active content
- From channel to canvas
- From desktop to mobile
- From single source of truth to the provider of different opinions
- From destination to platform
- From providing information to providing a service
- From company centric design to user centric design
- From single launch to continuous improvement
© Picture Credit: Duane Schoon