10 Giant Mistakes I Made This Year

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10 Giant Mistakes I Made This Year

• Lorelei Brown
• loreleibrown_at_yahoo.com

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About Me

• Making the Internet since 1995
• 7 years of consulting experience
• Joined NAR as a consultant
• Advanced case of hubris

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About the National Association of Realtors

• Million member association
• 5,000 pages of content, as well as applications
• Team of three Content editors, 1 IA
• 1 dedicated developer from IT department

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Stakeholders

• Publications/Communications - owners of the
  process
• IT department
• Departments - co-owners of the content
• The Association as Communicator
• Our members

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Objectives

• Find and install a new CMS.
• Map the site.
• New navigation and labeling.
• New visual design.
• Migrate all the content to new CMS.
• Tag with metadata.

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Timeline

• Map, redesign, IA and migrate
• 5,000 - 6,000 pages
• of content from Lotus Notes into TBD CMS with a
  staff of 4 while maintaining normal updates,
  without vendor help, in
• 18 months.

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By The Way

• 3 people on this team are writers, and don't
  really know anything about metadata, technology,
  large scale implementation, or information
  structures.

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• So, what happened?

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We had no process (so everyone got treated
differently).

• This is really just a good user flow!
• Write down the steps that you're going to follow
  for approval on a piece of paper.
• Draw a good diagram to go with it.
• Hand out this at the start of every meeting.

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We thought metadata would solve all of our
problems.

• Really the idea of metadata.
• Make sure to clearly explain all of your
  techniques.
• Stay appropriate to your audience.
• If it's untested, manage expectations.

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We knew that user-centered design triumphed over
all (including the relationships with our
stakeholders).

• It's important to have usable design.
• Messaging is a push and a pull.
• We ignored what the association needed to push
  out that our users may not care about.
• Be prepared to be the only one in the room who
  knows something is wrong.

12
We hired bad consultants that we didn't know were
bad (now we know better).

• Business development subject to exaggeration.
• Network.
• Get references. Ask hard questions.

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We ignored our internal clients' immediate needs.

• We lost credibility by telling people that we
  couldn't help them.
• When it came time to work directly, they thought
  we were idiots!

14
We thought everyone should be doing everything

• (so no one knew what their job was).
• Do IAs edit?
• Do editors write labels?
• Do developers make graphics?
• Define jobs well, but make sure that duties
  overlap.

15
We didn't spend enough money.

• Remember the magic triangle of good, fast, cheap?
  We needed good and fast...
• Get consultants, get vendors, get any outside
  advice to get smart fast

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We didn't narrow our focus (for the goals of our
redesign).

• If you can't explain what you're doing in an
  elevator pitch, rethink your project.
• Phases are crucial for large projects.

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We narrowed our focus too much (for the needs of
our technology).

• Work on the "what" not the "how" when youre not
  the expert.
• Don't select a CMS in three months.

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We set unrealistic timelines.

• Good, fast, cheap....
• The project plan is not your destiny, it's a
  guideline.
• Be conservative in your planning. Underpromise.

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The Transition from Designer to Entrepreneur

• Remember that you're there to solve business
  problems -- all the problems, not just the
  information design problem.
• Be flexible. Be agile. Evolve.
• Show your value. Your best value may not be as a
  designer.
• Start a whispering campaign. Buy a lot of lunch
  and coffee.

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What can you learn from my pain?

• You are not a unique and precious snowflake!
• Growing pains do hurt - and that's ok. (That
  which does not kill it makes us stronger)
• You need to explain your value and the potential
  ROI of your work. (We did this right!)

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Learn from my pain (cont)

• Don't oversell what IA do - it's part of a
  holistic implementation.
• The best sales is education.
• Don't forget to learn yourself.
• When you dont know what youre doing, pick good,
  better, best.
• Really, the clients just want a web site. Youre
  there to know about quality.

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Can you avoid every mistake?

• No! At some point, you just have to guess and do
  it.
• (It's called using your best judgment.)

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Next steps

• Meet everyone in the room who lives near you.
• Take 5 people out to lunch in the next two months
• Stay for Lous Roadmap!