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Eliminating Silos and Using Search as Primary Navigation

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) is a nonprofit organization representing the $55 billion newspaper industry. Given the importance of the web channel for newspapers around the country, and NAA’s industry leadership position, NAA understood the importance of demonstrating effective use of the Web through their own site. NAA hired NavigationArts to develop an effective web strategy and implement that strategy in a user-centered design. Since the organization serves its audiences through the dissemination of information, the essence of the new web strategy was to improve findability – enabling users to find the information they need.

NavigationArts engaged with a phased approach, beginning with an information gathering phase including stakeholder interviews and user research. The user research took the form of phone interviews with NAA members at newspapers around the country, and a broad-based web survey that helped to validate assumptions about user priorities. The team also evaluated the relevant project artifacts including NAA’s main website and 35 sub-sites, print publications, and web analytics.

The information gathering and analysis process revealed a critical site flaw that formed the basis of the web strategy. The flagship site’s information architecture needed to evolve from a “siloed,” departmentally driven architecture to one driven by the needs and goals of the primary audiences. This evolution would lead to a more multidisciplinary “issues-based” approach to providing information, rather than the existing approach, which was based on single topics. In addition, NAA’s online resources needed to become more unified and more accessible from a single entry point.

NavigationArts recommended that the search mechanism should be the primary navigational method offered to members. The establishment of an industry-specific taxonomy, disciplined topical content tagging, and a better-designed search experience were essential to user satisfaction.

The visual designers created a user interface design that has a sophisticated look and feel and emphasizes consistency and extensibility, ensuring that NAA will be able to manage the website going forward. NavigationArts’ development team built validated templates in XHTML and CSS based on the specific requirements of NAA’s CMS.

Since the decentralized web model and lack of rules around the web properties had been the original source of problems for NAA, NavigationArts created a web governance model to guide the website’s continued maintenance and growth. It outlined workflow patterns for content creation, editing, and approvals, and also plans for actions specific to the CMS, namely publishing and archiving. The governance model included a staffing plan, which recommended expansion of the web team. NAA asked NavigationArts to define the job descriptions and eventually to conduct interviews for the positions.

Project results included:

• Consolidation of organic web development into a cohesive website organized to serve user needs
• A comprehensive web strategy designed to increase the usability, findability, and maintainability of the NAA.org website
• Consensus building among stakeholders using a series of information architecture deliverables as focal points for discussion
• User research including phone interviews and a web survey to gain a solid understanding of users' goals on the website
• New site architecture with simplified navigation that emphasizes the findability of information, particularly through site search
• User interface design with a clean, sophisticated look and feel offering no distractions to site visitors on a hunt for information
• Template development in XHTML and CSS
• Content governance model including instructions around content creation, editing, and approval; content publishing; and staffing plans