www.cityofeastlansing.com
The Goals, Challenges & Implementation of a Modern Municipal Website with DotNetNuke
Background Collaborative effort The existing site was originally designed in
2001 Its technology and capabilities were quite
dated It was built using asp. I decided that DNN was the platform we would
move to. East Lansing is a City with 46,000 citizens and
encompasses a university with roughly 45 thousand students
Original East Lansing Site
Goals - Overview
The most Critical goals were these To outline The Look we were hoping for
To define the Navigation scheme
To develop a Content Management system that would satisfy the needs of the many content editors
To verify that we had The Tools to achieve specific functionality
Goals - The Look
Modern without becoming quickly dated We wanted to avoid the popular for a day features
like the web 2.0 shiny affects. Friendly & Uncluttered
We scoured the Web looking for examples but finding quality examples of Municipal was difficult.
Many Municipal sites looked either inept, dated industrial, or cluttered
Community Focused We wanted a look that reflected the character
our community. Strong use of Local Photos
The FrontPage
Our Goals - Navigation
Intuitive We worked to ensure that the navigation was simple and
connected to our design Semantic
Navigation was built around the following Criteria User Background, Page Popularity, Services, Departments
Consistent The navigation for a section of the website remains the
same as you move through that section Secondary Navigation allows you to reach related sub-
sections Powerful tools
Tabs, limited Dropdowns, AJAX Search, Sitemap, & URL Manager
Inside Pages
Our Goals – Content Management
Thorough Completely thorough Content Management is achievable
but I wanted to push it as far as I could. Minimize the time & technical knowledge needed to
make updates I believe that people working on the web should be open
to training. This helps them avoid technical issues and it elevates the content quality of your site. Still the tools should be intuitive and help them to avoid mistakes.
Daily updates should be the simplest News Releases, FrontPage Features, Calendar Events, Blogs
Avoid redundant entry Content Editors shouldn’t need to update multiple pages
with the same information
Windows Live Writer & MetaPost
Entering a News ItemSelect Articles, or blogs
Event Calendars
Invenmanager Calendar Satellite Module
Our Goals – The Tools
Functionally Complete News Releases Calendars & Events City Maps Downtown Business Profiles File Management (Minutes & Agendas) Blogs Photo Galleries Electronic Newsletters Analytics
News Releases
Maps and Blogs
Managing Meeting Minutes
The Challenges Creating a skin to match our graphic design
Javascript to – Load background images based on site sections Load Panelbar Manage Menus
Module Updates – Tweaks to Telerik Menu to Set New Parent Menu Calendar Satellite Module with Date Picker DNNStuff Aggregator & Ventrian New Articles - RSS
Feature
Mapping out content & creating a sitemap
File Management Bring2Mind - Document Exchange is used for
general file management Bring2Mind - Adapter module is used to
manage meeting minutes and agenda files We also use Ventrian Filelinks module to give
users access to upload files to specific directories
Events Management
Invenmanager Calendar was selected for events management but was missing key functionality Aggregated Calendars The ability to create exceptions for recurring
events Date selector for the Satellite module
What Modules to Use Ventrian
Child Links Simple Gallery News Articles File Links
InvenManager Calendar DNNStuff Aggregator Bring2Mind
Document Exchange Satellite
ZLDNN Module Wrapper JetKey SmartMap EZModule Netism Satellite Free
Gumbosoft Content Rotator Datasprings Opt-in Email IIT Sitemap Evotica Backup Native Ifinity
URL Master & windows 2008
Analytics Metapost Telerik Menu & Panelbar DNN
HTML Blog Iframe