ASIS&T’s new website is up!
It’s a soft launch in beta, but it’s up! Check it out at https://www.asist.org!!!
This website is the culmination of over four years of work for me. When Linda Smith was president, she asked me to chair the Webinar Task Force, which was charged with investigating our new webinar program and making recommendations for future webinars. One of our recommendations was to consider formats of online professional development other than webinars, so we became the Online Education Task Force under Diane Sonnenwald’s presidency. During our work, we realized that we needed to make our online presence in general more unified and updated. Andrew Dillon directed the formation of the Web Presence Task Force, and this Task Force has continued under Harry’s leadership. All Task Forces have sought frequent and wide-ranging input from the membership through online surveys, focus groups, and we’ve written Bulletin articles to update everyone about our processes and findings.
After making the decision to redesign the website, a few Board members drafted a call for proposals, which we distributed widely in the spring. Harry wanted us to unveil a new site at the annual meeting, so we had to work quickly. The Task Force reviewed all proposals, and earlier this year, we unanimously chose Seven Heads Design to create a new visual identity, identify personas that exemplify our diverse membership, write web-friendly content, and develop a WordPress site with custom templates. Kevin Hoffman, founder of Seven Heads, chaired the IA Summit in 2013, so he had already worked closely with Dick Hill and ASIS&T.
We had a kickoff meeting this summer in Baltimore in which a constituency of ASIS&T members and staff worked with the Seven Heads team to think about possible designs that would present content on the home page and develop a visual appearance that would exemplify us. We also had a persona workshop at ASIS&T Headquarters with content specialists to help us focus our message and determine who our audiences are. Dick and I have met weekly with Seven Heads. I’ve posted certain elements of the new site, such as logo options and site organization issues, here on this blog.
The Task Force has been amazing! When we received drafts of deliverables, they worked quickly to provide detailed and thoughtful comments. I would like to recognize my Task Force members: Joseph Busch, Andrew Dillon, Kate Dillon, Beth Lawton, Adam Worrall, and from the staff, Jan Hatzakos, and Dick Hill.
The site is still in beta. Not all pages are fully functional and not all pages exist. We will finish everything up as soon as possible, but we also wanted you to be able to give us comments, and the practicalities behind hard launching a new site right when the meeting is happening seemed overwhelming for the task force and the staff. Check it out.