Website Requirements

At its second meeting in February 2004, the founding members said a professional website was a major milestone needed in place before the launch of CM Pros. In July 2004 members voted the website, along with mailing lists and shared resources, as the highest priorities for CM Pros. The website redesign and public launch was completed September 30, 2004. But the website is a growing organic system, and needs constant care.

Over several months we have developed an evolving functional specification and requirements document. The website committee is developing a new website plan with additional functionality and requirements. A review of these requirements will determine whether the existing CMS and intranet toolset is adequate to the task. If not, CM Pros will evaluate and select a new CMS and organizational management toolset.

Functional specification highlights

• Membership management tools
  • Home page login
  • Database with several privilege levels
  • Editing privileges on a per-page basis
  • Administrator/Publisher, Editor, and Reporter/Writer
  • Member registration via secure shopping cart
  • A member directory
  • Data collection interface page
  • Search for members, sort by geographical area, skills, etc.
  • Member pages including individual blogs
  • Working groups management
  • Working group pages with threaded commentary for collaboration
• Content management tools
  • "Edit this page" skyWriter access with authentication
  • Source and WYSIWYG editing
  • Conversion of text and Word to HTML
  • Reusable content elements
  • Workflow notifications - page edits reported to others
  • Version control - archiving with rollback
  • Conflict detection (lock pages, check-out, etc.)
  • Group-written issue-oriented blogs
  • How to edit instructions
  • Exemplary use of XML, to facilitate reuse
  • XML WYSIWYG editor?
• Controlled access
  • Main pages visible to public
  • Private, members-only pages require login
  • Secure pages (https)
  • File uploads to shared server space for PDFs, Excel, Word, etc.
• Simple file/page naming convention
  • all lower case, underscore word separators
  • /membership/how_to_join
  • Simple, easy-to-guess, semantically meaningful URLs
  • URL mirrors file path name - cmprofessionals.org/membership/how_to_join
  • All pages easily bookmarked
• Clean site architecture
  • Content matrix, site architecture - six main top-level sections
    • About CM Pros
    • Membership
    • Resources
    • Education
    • Events
    • Organization
  • Templated pages share global-top banner structures
  • Sections have local-left navigation structures
  • Comprehensive Site Map
  • A-Z Site Index as alternate navigation scheme
  • Content elements (news items) can be reused on multiple pages
  • Style Guide to document fonts, colors, logo, naming conventions, etc.
• Home Page Features
• Banner with standard logo and tagline.
• Personalization to present "Join CM Pros" block for visitors and Memebr Login, but Member News to members (recognize member by name).
• Member Website links (those with CM Pros logo on home page).
• Recent Posts from CM Pros member blogs.
• Recent Submissions to Resource Library.
• Animated Link to collateral merchandise shop (Cafe Press).
• Recent Discussion Threads on the CM Pros mailing lists.
• Breaking News feature (content must change in two weeks or drop this feature).
• Feature News stories, e.g., news from the recent Summit. Best Practices story.
• Quick Links drop-down to most used pages.
• "Level 2" and lower-level pages
  • Each section has a landing page, a section editor and pages editors.
  • Individual pages have one or more content owners.
  • Drop-down menu coordinates with left-navigation in the section.
  • Main-menu tab reverses color.
  • Simple standardized path names reflect site structure and menus.
  • Visible site map one-to-one with (isomorphic to) files/folder taxonomy.
  • Improves visitor understanding of site model, mind map
• Calendar of CM Pros Events
• Member directory
• Professional (services) directory
• Job board
• Glossary of terms
• Best practices
• Resource library
• Summit pages
• Member survey tools
• Shopping cart
• Press releases and press mentions
• Compliance
  • Page metadata tags for search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Page HTML validation tests
  • Responsive to browser font size changes
  • Wide browser compatibility (>Netscape 4.75)
  • Alt and title attributes
  • Accessibility (to Bobby level 2)
• Mailing List Manager (manage subscriptions on multiple Mailman lists servs)
• Mailing List Archives in Blog-style web interface.
• Webinar support tool (archive presentation slides, make them resources after the fact).
• Aggregation of Recent Posts from Member Blogs.

Requirements document highlights

• Stakeholders, Business Strategy, User-Centered Design, Goals, Metrics
  • Founding members and Board of Directors
  • Member-driven organization
  • Paid staff - Executive Director
  • Pay for services in 2005
  • Revenues from member dues, summits, merchandise shop, Google AdSense?
  • Users are CM professionals everywhere, some members, some not
  • Allow organizational memberships?
  • Goals identified in Strategic Plan
  • Quantitative website metrics in WebTrends reports
  • Need to develop goal-specific metrics (new members/month, resources added, best practices, etc.)
• User research, Remote Usability Testing, develop Personas, Scenarios
• User Experience Design - Accessibility, Credibility, Desirability, Findability, Usability
• Member services/benefits
  The principal and most marketable benefit is simply membership itself.
  Others include
  • The cmpros mailing lists - Q&A among members and individual addresses visible to members
    • cmpros - main member list
    • cmpros-org - for organizational issue discussions
    • jobs - for job board notifications
  • The shared knowledge resources:
    • Glossary
    • Practices
    • Resource Library
  • Website members-only pages
  • Member blogs, aggregated for community conversation
  • CM Summit
  • Issue-oriented group blogs (or forums)
  • A quarterly newsletter (articles by members)
  • Member Surveys
  • A Membership Directory (All members will be listed in the members directory - visible to members only).
  • A Professional Directory, searchable by skill set (An additional fee might be charged for listing in the public Directory)
  • A Job Board
  • Consultant Search (by skills, experience, etc.)
  • An International Events Calendar (with professional discounts indicated)
  • Professional discounts on conferences, magazine subscriptions.
  • Educational Opportunities - Workshops, Seminars, Webinars
• Logo design and tagline
  • A compact logo spelling out content management professionals and using CM Pros for short name
  • No redundancy with cmprofessionals.org domain name
  • A tagline - the content management community of practice
  • Branding consistent on all pages
  • Authoritative style guide to promote brands, CM Pros, Are You A CM Pro?, etc.
• Information architecture
  • Separation of presentation templates from editable content
  • CSS control of all styling
  • Templated pages share global-top banner structures
  • Content elements (news items) can be reused
  • Simple standardized path names reflect site structure
  • Visible site map isomorphic to files/folder taxonomy
  • Improves visitor understanding of site model, mind map
  • Six main sections
    • About CM Pros
    • Membership
    • Resources
    • Education
    • Events
    • Organization
  • Subsections (level 3) needing navigation design (both global and local)
    • About CM Pros > Press Releases
    • Resources > Website
    • Resources > Best Practices
    • Events > Summit
    • Organization > Management Committee
  • Several special pages
    • Calendar
    • Member Directory
    • Job Board
    • Resources Library
    • Best Practices
    • Glossary
    • Shopping Cart
• Two-level navigation design
  • Global-top navigation has tool links and six main menus
  • Level 2 landing pages describe main sections
  • Each section has a section editor and pages editors
  • Main-menu tab reverses color
  • Coordinates with left-navigation in the section
  • Needs level 3 and below navigation design
  • Add "Quick Links" drop-down alternate navigation?
• Metadata tagging
  • Meta keywords for search engine optimization
  • General tags for site, more specific for sections
  • Specific tags for pages?
  • Content owner
• Authoring tools and training
  • Check-in, check-out automatic file locking
  • Scheduled publishing of content
  • Allow choice of editor (HTML, Dreamweaver, WYSIWYG)
  • Preview of HTML source before saving
  • In-context page view of content element
  • Word to HTML conversion
  • Content migration (import web page tool - getURL)
  • Image uploading
  • Online help
  • Bugs/Issues reporting/trackiong tool
  • Interactive training
• Administration tools
  • Member maintenance
  • Deactivate member
  • Change member password
  • Group members
  • Email a member group
  • Editorial activity reports
  • Audit trails (workflow reports)
• Document types supported in shared repository
  • File manager should support Word, PDF, Excel, etc.
  • Direct uploading and downloading of these documents
  • Multimedia files
  • Multilingual capability
• Editorial responsibility assignments
  • Assigned editors for main sections, individual pages
  • Allow multiple contributors
  • Workflow notifications to associated users
• Role-based Mailboxes
  • Forwards to member handling the task
  • Allow multiple member forwarding
  • Uses unix .forwards file, no archives
• Search
  • Site-specific search on home page
  • Log and analyze search terms
  • Develop controlled vocabulary for search term expansion (synonym rings)
  • Advanced search page
  • Optional Google site search
• Shopping cart
  • Member registration
  • Events (Summits) registration
  • Donations
  • Payments by credit card, PayPal, and check (US only)
• Website management and design tools
  • Metrics (Webtrends) and page hit counters
  • Collaboration Tools
  • Content Inventory
  • Information Architecture
  • Navigation Design
  • Personas
  • Scenarios
  • Style Guide
  • Site Map
  • Site Index
  • Test Plan
  • Bugs/Issues Reporting/Tracking Tool
  • User Research
• Mailing lists management tools
  • Simple forwarding mail addresses (support@cmporfessionals.org, etc.)
  • Subscriptions management page for members
  • List mom assignments
• Test Plan
  • Personas
  • Scenarios (Use Cases)
  • Web-based issue reporting and bug tracking at bugs.cmprofessionals.org
  • Specific testing steps
    • Browser testing
    • Page testing
      • Page title correct?
      • Page metadata - general plus page-specific keywords
      • Page links all working?
      • Are secure links secure (https)?
      • Page styles correct (bad CSS usage of h2, h3, h4 in several places)
      • Images have alt attributes
    • Template testing
      • Home page template
      • Six main templates
        • About CM Pros
        • Membership
        • Resources
        • Education
        • Events
        • Organization
      • Special page templates
        • Calendar
        • Member Directory
        • Job Board
        • Resources Library
        • Best Practices
        • Glossary
        • Shopping Cart
  • Editors practice editing test page, then real pages
  • Test workflow to associated users
  • Test member login
  • Test all restricted pages
  • Test shopping cart
    • Test registration of new member
    • Test purchase of membership
    • Test purchase of summit registration, lunch
    • Confirm funds settlement through Verisign, First Data Nashville, into our Merchant Account
  • Test Job Board
  • Test Member Directory
  • Test Glossary
    • Test term creation
    • Test definition creation and save
    • Test definition edit and save
  • Test Resource Library
  • Test Role-based Mailboxes

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Links to draft requirements documents

Hilary Marsh (Excel spreadsheet)

Content Matrix 20040914 (Excel, Marsh)

Content Requirements (Excel spreadsheet)

Travis Wissink (Excel spreadsheet)