6/10/08 NEO Meeting
Attendees
            E19: Ken Paul, Jean Samuelson
            Phone-in: Kath Thurston-Lighty, Robert Thurston-Lighty, Bob Wilt, Ranjani Saigal

Design
1.      Benefits link in the HR Banner.

  • Issue from last meeting: the Benefits link leads the user out of HR NEO into HR Benefits. This will be confusing to the new employee, and could cause the new employee to become lost. Options include:
    • 1. Remove Quicklinks (includes links to Benefits, Jobs, ESS, and Find it A-Z)
    • 2. Remove the Quicklinks and Areas of Service, shrinking the HR logo
    • 3. Removing just "Benefits".
  • Option 3, removing just the "Benefits" link, was not recommended by Laurie. Everyone else agreed that removing Quicklinks would be preferred to option 3: there is no need for a new employee to visit the Jobs site, ESS could be frustrating for new employees, particularly if they don't have certificates installed, and Find it A-Z will provide links outside of NEO. We want to keep the new employee on the NEO site as much as possible.
  • Wing will provide a couple of mockups showing options 1 and 2, although option 2 has more of an impact on his overall design, which was predicated on the entire HR banner being present.

2. MIT Community Bubble

  • Ken reviewed how this "gadget" will work. Each of the top three buttons (Fun/Jargon/News) specify the category of factoids appearing in the body of the bubble. Each time the page loads, the system displays a random factoid text and its corresponding URL in the bubble body, with the factoid topic dependent on the active Fun/Jargon/News category.
  • Kath has written documents on its functionality and content; both are posted on the NEO Wiki Design and Writing/Content pages.

Development
1.  MIT Community Bubble

  • Bob prefers to develop this in Flash as there are more control features with Flash (vs. Java script). Also, the multimedia overviews will be published using Flash- having only one technology will simplify usability testing and limit the number of users with accessibility issues.
  • Issue: Bob will work with Wing and Kath to fix the size of the bubble. Making the bubble size dynamic will add too much complexity.
  • The content of the bubble will be data driven based off an XML file. This means semi-technical users will be able to update or to freshen up the mix of factoids without programmer intervention. (E.G. News topics will need occasional refreshing.)
  • Issue: accessibility for users who lack Flash, or who have an incompatible version of Flash. Bob suggested creating a new page which has all of the Fun/Jargon/News topics available. For users lacking Flash, a link to this page would display. Still need to determine how to implement the link if the user has a non-working version of Flash. An additional benefit to the separate Fun/Jargon/News page: users wanting to see a specific topic (vs. the random one) will have the means to do so. Need to figure out a way to make a "View All" link accessible without cluttering the design. Last, we need a "Get Flash" link available at proper locations (e.g., page with link to multimedia overviews).

2. Development Schedule. This is posted on the NEO Wiki- see either the Timelines and Milestones or Development pages.

  • Pre-requisites for Bob to begin development work:
    • Templates from Wing
    • Content from Kath for 3 +/- pages, initial content TBD with Bob
  • Issue: timing of full Usability Testing & Phase II proposal
    • Full Usability Testing involves producing scripts for test users to follow. The scripts typically present challenges for users to obtain information or perform certain tasks.
    • Issue: Based on the development schedule, there is limited or no time to introduce any meaningful changes. Usability testing can take place only after a full build, which is scheduled for 7/30. By the time the studies are complete, we could only risk introducing the most minor of changes without compromising the QA or the launch deadline.
    • Issue: The web site has a 3 to 6 month life expectancy. Usability has to consider test users at different stages of their new employment. Performing the usability testing before we have users at different stages of their new employment will produce less meaningful results.
    • Proposal: we schedule full Usability Testing in the fall (Oct.?), and plan an updated release that coincides with the open enrollment benefit updates (both web content and multimedia overviews.)
    • The group agreed this approach made sense.
  • The 7/10 Usability Review, based on Bob's initial build of 3 pages, will still take place. Ranjani stated that the focus of this task will be code and accessibility review. The June 12 Usability Review will focus on navigation type features.

Writing/Content

  • Slight change to the Writing schedule- the 7/1 deliverable will consist of just 3 +/-final pages to allow Bob to begin his development work. The complete set of content will be delivered on 7/11.
  • The Multimedia script schedule is part of the Multimedia Development schedule on the NEO Wiki.
  • NEO URL Name. Kath and Robert suggested three names:
  • *- Welcome
    • YouAreHere
    • WelcometoMIT
  • Everyone liked the simplicity of "Welcome". Bob thought "Welcome" should also appear on the web page design, to reinforce the URL name. While everything about the current design says "Welcome" to new employees, nothing in the design explicitly states it. We discussed alternatives and the use of redirects and came up with the following first choice:
    • The new employee letter will direct the recipient to: hrweb.mit.edu/Welcome
    • The system will redirect the user to the site's true URL: hrweb.mit.edu/YouAreHere
  • The technical implementation (redirect vs. dual URLs) is TBD.

Multimedia Development.  The schedule is posted on the NEO wiki under NEO Multi-Media.

  • Schedule Review- key points:
    • The first script, based on the Benefits introductory slide is due 6/11. The purpose is to establish tone & style; little or no detailed benefits vetting will be required
    • Ken will present a brief overview of the NEO web project on 6/18 & 6/19 to Benefits staff. In addition to the overview, we will discuss how we'd like Benefits to contribute:
      • Benefits' primary role is to vet the audio script content; Jean Samuelson to coordinate
      • 6/24 first set of scripts(feed back due 7/1)
      • 7/1 second set of scripts (feed back due 7/8)
    • Auditions are scheduled soon. One month exists between auditions and recordings, to allow for alternative approaches. (Kath knows of some good voice talent at MIT should we become stuck.) Would be desirable to have some sample material to be read at the audition.
    • Kath will be present at the production recordings, scheduled for mid-July. She will be able to perform any necessary on the spot script re-writes.
    • Ken requested that everyone review the schedule, paying particular attention to those tasks where they are listed as the contact. Everyone should confirm they are comfortable with the dates/task/time allotted/etc.
  • Issues:
    • The multimedia overview script content matrix is currently incomplete. Ken will have an updated version for Kath soon.
    • We are considering employing a PowerPoint expert to build the slides. This person should be able to add animations and effects to the PowerPoint slide show based on Wing's design templates, and consistent in taste and style with the rest of the web site. Tom Pixton has a potential candidate, but there are issues to consider. Recommendation- that we make this decision part of the phase II development effort (i.e., timed for Open Enrollment during the fall.)

IS&T Proposed Dates

  • MIT Certificates. IS&T has requested that we provide dates to help drive their upgrade of the IS&T Certificate Acquisition web pages. They are open to our reviewing a draft. Dates have been proposed, and Ranjani will follow up with IS&T.
  • Additional dates for Usability Reviews have been proposed- Ranjani will follow up with IS&T on this as well.

Action Items - (an incomplete list!)

  • Ranjani - IS&T schedule followup
  • Ken -
    • confirm MIT AV audition dates & times
    • content for multimedia scripts
  • Laurie - confirm URL technical implementation approach
  • Wing - post HR Banner examples
  • Julienne - audition announcement
  • Bob - discuss the separate Fun/Jargon/News page design with Wing & Kath
  • No labels

1 Comment

  1. Laurie C Bryce

    My comments on the URL section of the meeting notes:

    If the actual URL is YouAreHere and not Welcome, then I don't think it makes sense to include "welcome" in the design. It's inherent in any case, as noted.

    Note that URLs are case sensitive, and it's widespread web practice to use all lowercase (in other words, /welcome and /youarehere). Those don't look as pretty as the uppercase versions, though. It's fine with me to use uppercase when giving out a URL (such as in the offer letter) but we'll still need to maintain lowercase versions for consistency, in case someone types them in. So we're actually talking about maintaining FOUR sets of URLs to get to one site:

    hrweb.mit.edu/Welcome/
    hrweb.mit.edu/welcome/
    hrweb.mit.edu/YouAreHere/
    hrweb.mit.edu/youarehere/

    The way we'd handle this is one actual, real URL and three redirects.  I'd need to know which URL you want users to see MOST of the time when they're on the site. Sounds like it would be YouAreHere. So the other three would have an immediate, invisible redirect to the real site.

    The only drawback to a redirect is that the Back button then fails to work. If you're on some other site, say the MIT home page, and you go to hrweb.mit.edu/welcome/, for example, and then want to go back to the MIT home page, too bad. Every time you hit your Back button, you hit the redirect and get bounced back to the NEO site. It's not a big deal and we've all experienced that (savvy users know to navigate back TWO pages to skip the redirect), but it's worth mentioning.  To minimize the issue, we need to be sure we use the real, actual URL in EVERY spot possible, other than the offer letter, to make sure as few users as possible hit any redirects. So with the one key exception of the offer letter, all links anywhere at MIT that point to the NEO site need to use the real URL.

     Laurie