Department Takes Strides for More Professional and Integrated Websites

By Lois Nilsen, Project Director, DHHS Comprehensive Website Redesign Project

Public Affairs recently unveiled new Web Standards and a new Website Style Guide for the department. A new departmental policy on public websites was just published as well. These documents (available at www.ncdhhs.gov/redesignproject) will help the department have a more professional and integrated web presence.

The Web Standards provide basic technical and governance guidance for the entire department. They were created by Public Affairs and approved by DIRM.

The Website Style Guide provides minimum required elements, review procedures, content guidelines, as well as helpful tips on linking and file format. This Style Guide is a resource to all in the department who write for any of our websites.

Web Governance

The policy, standards and style guide are a tool for the department to establish web governance. The other tool, much more important, are people.

Through the years, the department has created many websites, now numbering 127. Together they comprise hundreds of thousands of individual web pages. Our ability to manage such a vast web presence has not kept up.

Each division director has assigned one person as their go-to person for web content. These “Web Content Managers” are not technical, but they keep their eye on the divisions’ websites on behalf of the director.

For example, we all have links and pages on our sites that were placed there years ago, and now no one remembers the reason why. The Content Manager asks why, and makes appropriate changes. Web Content Managers will coordinate compliance with policies and standards, and will be the liaison with the Website Redesign Project. This is just the beginning: larger divisions will probably need to assign “content coordinators” at some point down the road. It’s a new type of web governance and it may take a while to get the kinks worked out.

The Web Standards and Website Style Guide specify that all new website materials should be reviewed by Public Affairs, and levels of review for revisions to existing web pages should be negotiated with the appropriate public information officer. This is not a new requirement, but may be new to some nonetheless. The website is our most public of publications, and Public Affairs has the expertise and the perspective that no other office has.

Content Management System: Still On the Table, For Later

Many people have been involved in planning for a web content management system for the department. These are powerful web applications to create and manage websites. Content management systems allow an organization to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of web material. They help with content creation, content control, editing, and many essential web maintenance functions, and can give non-technical people the ability to update their websites.
Web content management systems are the industry standard method for large organizations to manage their websites. The type of system that DHHS needs is not cheap. We hope to make it part of the department’s budget request in 2009.

Questions on the Website Redesign Project? Go to www.ncdhhs.gov/redesignproject or contact Lois Nilsen at 715-4394/lois.nilsen@ncmail.net