Where I’ve Been…and What I’ve Learned
So, I started this page with an intention to focus a portion of my time outside of work on visiting and remaining connected to the museum community. I have visited many museums and cultural spaces since I last wrote here…however my internet time has been monopolized by two things: the insanity of our current political climate and the redesign of a corporate website. The politics made me not want to open any sort of electronic device once I left work, while the website followed me home most nights as I wrangled people and content to get the project done.
Now, I haven’t had any great epiphanies about how to better cope with internet fatigue in my time away, but I did learn a whole lot about redesigning a website — a process I had merely helped with on the sidelines up until this point.
The old corporate site was rather clunky and not visually appealing, so things were already in motion with a design agency ahead of my hiring at the Spice World last February.
From my first day until last month, working on the new site dominated most of my work days…and that really kicked into high gear over the summer as we gained access to the newly designed site and were able to make edits ourselves without relying on the agency for every detail.
As one of two members of our (small) team with experience in Sitecore CMS, the bulk of the actual work fell to me to complete. This was a challenge I really embraced and learned a tremendous amount from — not just from a technical perspective, but also in communicating and collaborating to meet expectations and troubleshoot problems.
In sum, here are the three big takeaways from what I’m now referring to as my first full redesign experience:
1. Organization is the key to collaboration. I know that this seems like a very simple takeaway, but this whole experience really hammered it home for me. I had multiple members of our team asking how they could help on the site and how they could contribute. I realized that to answer those offers effectively, you need to have a really firm grasp on what you’re doing and where the holes are. Additionally, communicating those needs is done best when the overall scope of the project can be efficiently shared. I experimented using Trello and AirTable for project management. I can confidently say that AirTable won out. It was the best way to set up needs for different project elements and efficiently send requests over to those who offered to help.
2. Your team is the most valuable asset you have. Building off the above point about organization, having a roadmap in place of what needed to be completed was the best way to prepare the team around me for success. While I had the most knowledge of Sitecore, those who I worked with were able to contribute in areas where I had no skills whatsoever. Our graphic designer was the unsung hero of the bunch — dropping everything to redesign carousel images, headers and create new assets at a moment’s notice. Our team worked so well together because we each knew our strengths and were able to use them to benefit the group.
3. Be nimble. I mean this in two ways. (1) Be nimble in how you complete tasks and solve problems that arise. Throughout this process, it seemed like there wasn’t a day that went by without a curveball or new expectation placed upon the completed project. In the beginning, these requests would frustrate me to no end since I like the make decisions and stick by them. I learned that this is not the overall work style for most and that the process would be more of an evolution of concepts, rather than cut and dry decision making. Shifting my thinking in this way allowed me to respond with more dynamic solutions and spend more time focused on outcomes than being frustrated with changing expectations.
And (2) be nimble in how you communicate. The level of understanding the mechanics of websites varies greatly at this company. I was used to always working with people who were on my level of competency when it comes to the internet at large (*cough* millennials and digital professionals *cough*). Working on this project was a test of how successfully I could communicate with people across the spectrum of digital literacy. It became apparent that the way in which I described functions and best practices would need to change based on who I conversed with. Again, this frustrated me when it first happened, but as I learned the nuances of different stakeholders, it became easier to explain concepts to a wide range of people. I find this experience invaluable and I’m glad it came at this early stage in my career.
I also wouldn’t have made it through this without the support of the museum and tech communities I’ve found both on the internet and IRL. From answering my questions to being a constant source of inspiration, you’re the real MVPs. I can’t thank you enough!
Overall, I’m quite proud of the outcome of this site! You can check it out here and see a screen grab of the new homepage below. I’m looking forward to creating new content for it and learning more about website management, SEO, design and utilizing the site fully. It’s been a long road and I’m glad to cross the first of many finish lines. Here’s to the first of what I hope to be many newly designed websites. Cheers!
