About this newsletter
This first edition of Web Content News is produced by the Public Affairs web team to bring you news related to the county's website, Hennepin.us.
We have nearly 200 content contributors in our web community; our hope is that we can engage more of you with this online update.
Your comments and feedback are always welcome!
Nancy SooHoo, Web Manager
Hennepin.us was last redesigned in 2009 and plans are being developed to create a new user-interface. Feedback from departments show us there is widespread enthusiasm to create better content through e-government and to reach more audiences.
Public Affairs, IT and e-government have joined together to create an RFP for an audience usability project that will result in a state-of-the-art design. Look for updates in future issues of this newsletter.
"No content item selected"
Visitors occasionally pull up search results pages only to find "No content item selected" - a blank page.
This occurs when pages haven't been completely removed from the search function. It can be avoided by completing the last step of the unpublishing or deleting content process:
REMINDER: We found that authors frequently overlook this step when deleting RFPs and RFQs.
The county has extended the Vignette CMS license through the end of 2013. CIO Judy Regenscheid stated at a Hennepin County Board briefing on April 19 that a replacement for Vignette has not been named. She confirmed that Vignette intranet sites, and any new intranet sites, will be built in SharePoint.
The phone directory (homepage) has been rebuilt and updated with current numbers. It is the responsibility of each department to periodically check the directory for accuracy.
How to change a phone number
The county's IT department is exploring the potential to automate updates to the directory, but until that time, please contact the web team to request a change.
The following changes were made to the county website in April.
Home page
- Removed right navigation images to streamline the look and feel of the home page.
- Created separate channels for Jobs and Volunteering to make this content more findable.
Before
After
Other changes
- The DOCTYPE was modified to allow better rendering of pages by browsers.
- The Also Found In... was removed from the left side of web pages because it produced links with duplicate titles, which proved to be confusing to users.
Note: Because the Also Found In... was removed, web pages without a Read More Highlight will now display an empty white column on the left. Consider adding a Read More Highlight to improve page design.
Public Affairs has created a new process to ensure short URLs meet county usability guidelines.
This change requires a brief conversation with Public Affairs to resolve any usability issues or naming conflicts before the short URL is granted.
Starting in June 2012, the Web Admin Request database will only process short URLs that have been pre-approved by Public Affairs. Ongoing quarterly approver meetings will be on hiatus until further notice. Over the next 18 months, our web community will be impacted by a web redesign, new CMS and content migration.
Future meetings will need to occur, and meetings will be scheduled as soon as we learn more about these projects.
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