articles

Building a Project Site

By Theresa Wilkinson, W-edge design
Reprinted with permission from the STC Intercom magazine - June 2000 Volume 47, Issue 6.

Managing a Web site project typically does not follow any clearly defined methods or standards of practice. Although there is a lot of "how to build a site" information out there, very little on how to manage a Web project actually exists. But a project site could be just the answer you are looking for.

What is a project site?

A project site is a communication center. It can reside on an extranet - a password-protected site designated for those involved in a project, or off of an Intranet. Used well, a project site helps your project say organized and on track. Project sites usually contain the project schedule, a chronology of events, email threads, a page of contracts, a page of resources, and more depending on the project's requirements.

Project sites are useful to all parties involved in a Web project. Maintained by the producer or project manager, who knows what's going on with both teams, the site reminds all parties of deadlines and decisions made. Clients, both internal and external, can access it at any time of day - even in the middle of the night - to refresh themselves on the status of an item or to review designs when they have time. New team members can play catch-up simply by reviewing email threads and discovering how particular decisions were made.

Using a project site

I created and used a project site when I worked for a large company managing a Web project. I created some simple graphics for the site's main page and set up the site's navigation to include: design document (site goals, audience, task analysis), paper prototype, graphic options, schedule, and resources.

The site was extremely useful when decisions needed to be made from several people in different locations. We put several graphic versions of the site up on the project site. On the main page of the graphic options section, I informed everyone involved when the decision needed to be made for the final version of the graphics and to email me with their votes. When all votes were in, I then posted the tally.

Also as a free-lance Web designer working out of my home, I find a project sites to be very useful. While building the project site for the METSS Web development project, I wanted the site to look very similar to what the actual site would look like. During many of our initial meetings, Ken, my client, had problems visualizing the Web pages I described. But as I began to build the METSS Project Site, he could see many of the elements I was talking about -- like the style sheet to control the font sizes and colors to match the company logo, and the secondary navigation on some of the pages of the site. And of course the site was very useful in his decision on the new company logo.

Maintaining a project site

Maintenance on a project site can be very time-consuming. With some of the project sites that I maintained, something was always changing. If it was not changes on the schedule, it was changes on the paper prototype, or changes on the backend programs. It was almost a full-time job just to keep the site up to date with the project! But all the hard work paid off by keeping the team, and clients, up to date with all project changes.

Like any Web site, project sites are only limited by your imagination. And they can be used for more than just managing the development of Web sites; they can be used to manage technical communication projects, software development projects, and even marketing ad campaigns. I recently advised a marketing manager to create a project site for different ad campaigns for which he was trying to get approval, as most of his decisions makers were in different states.

I am sold on project sites!