IT Learning & Development Site

 

Project Type

Site Redesign, Content Migration

Contributions

user journeys, workflow, IA, wireframing, content strategy

Project Team

project manager, ux designer, content strategist

Challenge

A heavy, 220-page Drupal site undergoes a major redesign and CMS platform migration to WordPress simultaneously. This project was completed within a four-month span, as the transition to the new CMS had to be completed before the current Drupal license expired.

Screenshot of old ITLD site

Solution

This project required a dual prong approach. First, a content audit was performed to see what must be kept, what could be updated, what could be deleted, and what could be offloaded to a more appropriate location like the Penn State Knowledge Base or inside the Learning Management System, Canvas. Once content had been assessed and updated, we established a new information architecture so that users could browse all available offerings as well as search for specific classes. Grouping like applications like Microsoft 365 services allowed a visitor to quickly understand their options. Second, as we knew the timing was critical, we used an established WordPress template to allow content loading to begin almost immediately, and then the design was massaged around the new content structure to apply Penn State branding and Penn State IT’s visual identity. 
new ITLD home page closeup

Impact

  • Shifting training documentation to Penn State KnowledgeBase and Canvas Learning Paths reduced site size by 82% to 39 pages, down from 220.
  • Migration to WordPress eliminates the additional budgetary expense of maintaining a Drupal license and contracting out Drupal development work, as there is no in-house support.
  • Organizing training by service allows users to both search and browse training offerings, providing a superior user experience.
  • Adding a training event calendar enables users to view training offerings by month and register for classes directly from the ITLD site. This also eliminates a separate monthly mass mailing that had to be pulled manually in addition to a training newsletter.
  • The user-centric redesign has significantly reduced customer support and staff inquiries.
  • Incorporating their existing email newsletter into the site and integrating with MailChimp (which their work unit had but wasn’t fully using) allows visitors to easily subscribe from the website rather than signing up via a more clunky listserv.

 

training events calendar
partial shot of the ITLD Microsoft training offerings

I am reaching out to let you know how amazing the folks from IT Comm have been over the past few months. Specifically, Audrey Romano and Robin Smail went above and beyond to help transition our ITLD from Drupal to Sites at Penn State. This was a huge lift and timely as our instance of Drupal was set to expire 12/31/21. Without their direction and diligence, our new site would not exist.

PS. Robin, I am also LOVING the ITLD site!!! The changes to ALL of the O365 tiles — brilliant!

Lindsey Kiraly

Manager, IT Learning & Development (ITLD)

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