Over the years, our design team that has fluctuated between 4 - 6 members has faced an overwhelming amount of demand for new sites to be developed with a quick turnaround desired by our clients. For faculty lab sites, student group sites, and any other simple sites that don't require highly customizable options and need to be up and running rather quickly, our web team offers a self-serve website service that is implemented with MODX.
Our Self-Serve Website Service currently consists of three (3) different layout options with four (4) different themes available with each layout. For each site, the following options are available:
Along with these options and twelve (12) responsive layout/theme combinations, we also offer training materials in the form of online videos and written documentation in order to familiarize our clients with managing their websites.
Before implementing this service, we first took inventory of MODX templates that our team had previously created. From here, we chose which features from each template to streamline and include (see section above for list of features). Next, we determined that we wanted to provide both a vertical navigation option as well as a horizontal navigation option. We then chose three (3) of of our existing templates that most closely complied with our requirements. This allowed us the ability to modify these templates with minimal effort.
In addition to adding the streamlined features, mentioned above, to each template, we also took into consideration creating themes (color/font combinations). Since we knew that we wanted to be able to distribute these sites on a mass level, we came up with the solution of creating a centralized location for which our color theming files were stored. This way, each copy of a Serve-Serve Website does not have it's own CSS files for themes, but rather, points to the client's chosen theme file that all sites with this theme uses. This helps immensely when making updates and/or fixes to the CSS since we only update the files in one (1) location, but our updates cascade to all of out Self-Serve Websites.
In order to improve our roll-out of these sites to be as fast as possible, we have developed several shell scripts in order to automate certain processes for us. These include, but are not limited to:
This has allowed us to be able to minimize our Self-Serve Website setup time to roughly 30 minutes.
After the creation of the informational website explaining what a Self-Serve Website is and how to request one, our team conducted in-person usability testing with individuals of varying technical backgrounds, with the following goals in mind:
We presented participants with various scenarios and had them physically and verbally make their way through our informational website, noting any issues and/or comments that they had along the way. This lead to several revisions to the site in order to make it more user-friendly. Though we continue to make various improvements and modifications to this site over time, the finished product can be viewed on our site.
In order to train our users on how to manage their site content, we first began with the process of conducting individual, in-person trainings every time a new publisher or group requested access to edit a site. This soon proved to be overwhelming, as we were producing and rolling out Self-Serve Websites at an exponential rate. This lead to the need for creating online instructional videos that publishers are able to watch (and rewatch) on their own time, prior to gaining editing access to a site. In order to supplement these videos, we also provided a written user guide for quick and easy access to information that is covered in the training videos.
Since the roll-out of our Self-Serve website service, we have created over 250 sites and are able to better manage the high demand of faculty lab sites, student group sites, and any other simple sites requested within our department.
For more information regarding our current Self-Serve Website Service, visit our website. For some examples of sites that our clients have created using our service, visit our portfolio, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with our frequent launches.
Also, stay on the look out for a future post about the release of next generation of our Self-serve website service, "Self Serve Flex", which is currently under its final stages of development. Thanks for reading!