Assessment of Cook County Portal/Websites Redesign Draft ...
Assessment of Cook County Portal/Websites Redesign Draft Information Architecture, High level Technology Plan and SaaS Pre‐Evaluation from
for
Cook County Bureau of Technology August 17, 2012
Assessment of CC Portal/Websites Redesign Draft IA/Tax/Tech Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Plan Outline
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary .............................................................................. 3 1.1
Milestone One Items ............................................................................... 3
2. Draft Information Architecture/Taxonomy ........................................... 3 2.1
Draft Information Architecture/Taxonomy ............................................. 3
3. Outline of Approach to Final IA/Taxonomy and Technical Architecture .......................................................................................................... 11 3.1
Approach to Final IA & Taxonomy ......................................................... 11
3.2
Approach to the Final Technical Architecture ....................................... 12
4. Technology Plan Outline .................................................................... 15 4.1
Host & Network ..................................................................................... 15
4.2
Software ................................................................................................ 16
5. SAAS Pre‐evaluation ........................................................................... 16 6. Conclusion ......................................................................................... 18
Version
Date
Author(s)
Draft 1
08/20/07
Bryan Jalowitz
Draft 2
08/29/07
Bryan Jalowitz
Revision Notes This was the first draft for review 1.
Added integration with Municode into SaaS pre‐eval (Kathleen’s request)
2.
Removed Mobile Apps from Draft IA Sebastian’s request)
3.
Added future scaling option to tech plan, full failover white glove support (Acquia)
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Assessment of CC Portal/Websites Redesign Draft IA/Tax/Tech Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Plan Outline
1. Executive Summary Clarity Partners has been engaged to provide an assessment of the Cook County Portal/Websites for redesign. The redesign includes the implementation of a new content platform (Drupal), information architecture & taxonomy, content strategy and process and a new outsourced datacenter to host the platform. As part of the redesign assessment, Clarity’s deliverables include a draft information architecture, an outline of the approach to the final Information architecture & taxonomy & technical architecture, SAAS pre‐evaluation and the outline of a technology plan. This document includes all of the above deliverables and is an input to the Statement of Work for the redesign project.
1.1 Milestone One Items 1.1.1.
Draft IA/Taxonomy and Approach to Final IA and Technical Architecture
The draft Information architecture/taxonomy created from benchmarks, professional opinion, review of Cook County web logs and portal, represents the furthest point reachable without in‐depth analysis of all Cook County content and direct involvement of Cook County portal internal and end users. This draft IA is not recommended for production implementation and does not address the custom Cook County page (my.CookCounty) architecture implementation directly.
1.1.2.
SAAS Pre‐evaluation
Clarity’s pre‐evaluation of the existing Cook County SaaS environment is centered on validating the level of compatibility with Drupal and the level integration required.
1.1.3.
Outline of a Technology Plan
The outline of the technology plan responds to Cook County requirement to outsource the hosting of the new Drupal portal in an enterprise class facility.
2. Draft Information Architecture/Taxonomy
2.1 Draft Information Architecture/Taxonomy 2.1.1.
Draft Information Architecture Map with Taxonomic Recommendations
The draft Information Architecture/Taxonomy is presented in the form of an Information Architecture Map that depicts the high level design of navigation elements and high level Taxonomic recommendations. Cook County goals of Improved Services and Transparency /Accountability are addressed in 2 Taxonomic threads, Services and Organization.
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Figure 1 other organizations
Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
3. Outline of Approach to Final IA/Taxonomy and Technical Architecture 3.1 Approach to Final IA & Taxonomy The approach to developing the Final IA and Taxonomy will center on 3 types of input from the people most directly involved with the portal and its redesign. 1.
Internal users/SME’s and external end users: residents, business owners, visitors and property owners
2.
Organizational stakeholder input
3.
Expert opinion leveraging web analytics, competitive analysis, content audit and the above user input
3.1.2 User Input Building on the Draft IA provided in this document, user input is integrated throughout the project and used to validate all aspects of development including: information and technical architecture, creative, design, prototyping, development and testing/user acceptance. Additionally the IA is a living element of the site that should be reviewed and updated ongoing as part of a formal Web governance/Usability process. Usability testing and user focus groups will include multiple dimensions of user input including; usability/accessibility, desirability, compellability, user expectations, credibility and value. Usability exercises shall include card sorting, videotaping usage of prototypes, and focus groups. Initially low fidelity paper prototypes will be used for cognitive walkthroughs of the draft IA capturing feedback on all aspects of the IA before creating an interactive (clickable) medium fidelity prototype. Finally working portions of the portal are tested with real users and adjustments are made if necessary directly to the IA and taxonomy before launch. 1.
Definition of participant requirements based off of identified personas; development of participant screener
2.
Definition of the top 10 ‐15 sites to be used for analysis, to include the following; a.
Public sector sites selected from assessment benchmark based on score
b.
Public sector sites will be selected based on Cook County’s favorites
c.
Private sector sites will be selected on merit, Cook County’s favorites’ and applicability to both the main Cook County site and the custom myCookCounty account page
3.
Recruitment of usability participants (Parallel track)
4.
Definition of top, end user tasks based off of user input/requirements, data mining and analysis of web logs etc., stakeholder input and industry standards
5.
Hold first round of user interviews, tests and a single focus group
6.
Update personas, user stories and user requirements
7.
Review search and traffic data
8.
Perform content audit (Parallel track)
9.
Examine existing controlled vocabularies to see if they meet CC’s user and taxonomic needs
10. Building on draft taxonomy, build breadth and depth of terms to tag content 11. Hold second round of User testing (All items are tested and results are compiled) 12. Refine Information architecture map and taxonomy 13. Steps 11 and 12 are repeated 1 or more times depending on the results of the User tests
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
14. After IA and Taxonomy are complete and signed off on by stakeholders, a similar process is performed with the wireframes(black and white web page blue prints), visual comps (actual site mock ups accurately depicting the new site look and feel) and working site. Results are considered for inclusion in the IA.
3.1.3 Organizational Input Organizational input will be organized through the development of a Web Integrity Network within the County Bureaus and departments. Utilizing the existing PIO’s and Bureau Chiefs and a single representative from any group not represented by a PIO a Web Integrity Network shall be created. The WIN will collect and share information about government goals and services, users and web practice as it relates to the county. Initially this group will provide input to the information architecture, content strategy and technical architecture from an organizational/subject matter expert perspective. Later in the project, the same group will be trained on the new CMS & Portal, unified content strategy and how to best serve their audience through the web.
3.1.4 Expert Opinion and Data Mining Expert opinion will be applied throughout the project utilizing best practices in information architecture, content strategy and technical architecture. Data mining of popular search terms used within the county will be performed. Data mining will also include, search terms for Cook County services and government that did not find the site and consequently did not get recorded in Cook County’s web access server logs or Google analytics.
3.2 Approach to the Final Technical Architecture The approach to develop the content/content strategy centric technical architecture, software and systems shall follow a standard, linear, requirement driven Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The SDLC will minimize re‐ work, required resources and risk in developing something that doesn’t fully address the organization’s or user’s needs. This project shall leverage Drupal and Drupal contributed modules and frameworks to speed development and reduce ongoing maintenance costs. Gap analysis will be performed between requirements and existing, pre‐ created features and where gaps exist, development will be scoped to fill gaps and enhance the platform for Cook County’s use.
3.2.1 Technical Architecture Approach
1.
User and organizational requirements gathering and analysis. Initially (shall) statements from this document are entered into a central requirements document updated throughout the project. The requirements document is controlled through a change control process that requires changes to be mutually approved before being implemented.
2.
Validation of user and organizational requirements against a 0 value development instance of Drupal 7, preconfigured with the modules from the technology plan outline, to take full advantage of pre‐created functionality and document limitations, compatibility, drawbacks and benefits.
3.
Building on the content audit, user input/testing, information architecture, user requirements and the resulting content strategy/governance process, functional requirements are developed that directly drive the design of the technical architecture. Functional requirements are implemented initially as a series of textual statements and then visually in IA wireframes and creative mockups and are put in front of all user types internal and external for feedback.
4.
The functional requirements are validated for feasibility against a development instance of Drupal.
5.
The technical architecture document is created and distributed for feedback and signoff to include the following analysis defining the physical and logical technical architecture:
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
a.
Analysis on how external and internal users will access the site and what types of data is stored by them and where it is stored and how it is accessed
b.
Physical architecture sizing and scaling analysis based on the amount of dynamic page generation and calculations vs. cached static pages, load testing and general responsiveness during use
c.
Module data flow analysis. How built in Drupal features, contributed and custom code interacts to deliver on functional requirements i. Example: The custom developed template defines a flexible page grid that contains page regions that contain configurable blocks. Users rearrange and swap out blocks that contain content filtered by the views module, exposing powerful content filtering and mashing tools for non‐technical users.
d.
Performance strategy including caching, load balancing and cloud based delivery/redundancy
e.
Analysis of how the technical architecture supports governance, branding and content strategy i. Examples: Workflow analysis, branding kit support and governance of the content delivery and branding process
6.
f.
User, load and regression testing process
g.
Backup and recovery process
h.
Tracking and site statistics implementation
i.
Development/ Staging/Production process and version management
j.
Implementation of responsive design
User feedback on the actual systems housing the technical architecture prior to launch ensures that the technical architecture best serves the content producers and the process that governs and measures their success in serving their target audiences.
3.2.2 Current Understanding of Existing High Level Requirements 3.2.2.1 Content Universality The portal shall make content universally accessible, contributable, reusable, and measurable. Different content/users/context requires different mechanisms to access and deliver content. The new portal content will be made universally accessible as an API and will be accessible from all http enabled applications, front end and back end. Requirements Analysis will be performed to define what aspects of the portal and its sites and custom myCookCounty page(s) will utilize the Content API requiring the development of custom delivery applications and which will benefit from the preexisting theming and delivery features in Drupal.
3.2.2.2 Responsive Design The portal shall make use of responsive design practices to address all screen sizes, browsers and touch vs. mouse interactivity in the best way for each device. The responsive design practice shall be the key front end technical architecture component. Multiple responsive design libraries and frameworks will be reviewed for integration with Drupal as well as from scratch development to fully leverage Content Universality in a responsive way. Additionally the responsive design practice shall respond to newer browsers that include GPU support for accelerated graphics and gracefully degrade for older browsers that do not. Responsive design plays a key role in the content strategy and has specific architectural code patterns and constraints that are imposed on all content to consistently deliver the correct content in the correct format.
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
3.2.2.3 Content Strategy Centric Architecture The content strategy orchestrates content development, management and delivery across the enterprise. Through applying governance, accessibility/usability/branding standards across sites and channels to track the performance of all web activities, the portal embodies the content strategy in its technical architecture. With a clear content strategy in place the technical architecture can be built with the most accurate amount of flexibility and safeguards. Example Content Strategy user engagement, flow chart designed to increase user engagement and retain users (Example only, not a draft or intended for use)
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
3.2.2.4 Multiple tiered site building & flexible branding The portal shall have the ability for agencies to build out new layouts for micro sites and to accelerate content and site development while retaining world class branding, usability/accessibility standards. The new portal will have multiple ways to deliver content, and develop websites. Analysis will uncover the best way to deliver content for Cook County’s specific user types and specific content. For example: Content is best served in its raw form when implemented in an application by developers that add in the display layer programmatically. Non‐technical users are best served using Drupal’s built in delivery mechanisms that allow for users to do powerful things without writing code or developer assistance. Some users will benefit from more safe guards/restrictions than others.
3.2.2.4 Outsourced Physical Architecture and Anonymous Account Management The physical architecture shall be outsourced to allow for economy of scale in shared services, commoditization, and cloud based delivery/redundancy. To mitigate the risk of sensitive information being distributed unintentionally the portal shall integrate and leverage OpenID and other external authentication providers.
4. Technology Plan Outline The physical architecture and support is to be provided by an external host. The following technology plan includes a quote to host a site at Acquia based off of Cook County’s current bandwidth, throughput and server performance requirements, including hardware, network, and security setup. The outline also includes the recommended base configuration of contributed modules for Drupal 7.
4.1 Host & Network The following is a current quote from Acquia Networks, a Drupal centric, enterprise class, hosting provider. Acquia was provided with statistics roughly matching Cook Counties existing production web sites, cookcountyil.gov and blog.cookcountygov.com. Acquia leverages the Amazon network. Single‐server, in high‐ availability environment w/partial, cloud cached, failover support
99.95% SLA uptime
Highly optimized Drupal stack
24x7 site monitoring
Bandwidth Scale on‐the‐fly
Fully integrated development and staging environments w/ code management tools
Bandwidth 125GB per month ($25 per additional 100 GB).
Cloud Infrastructure
1 Web/ DB Server, Load tested, 2 64‐bit 6.5 ECU CPUs (m2.xlarge) machine
17.1 GB RAM, 500 gig storage.
Shared Load Balancer/local flat file cache, cloud cache
$10,000 first year cost quote from Acquia $35,000 additional support package required for full failover support of additional load balanced machines Additional research can be performed if required into Acquia network vs. competing hosts v.s. Clarity or another firms capable of hosting locally. Local solutions, could balance the value of distributed cloud networks with the speed of locally hosted alternatives that more directly serve a local Cook County audience with less hops.
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
Initially a development environment will be set up by Clarity to cost effectively serve the project until a production ready environment is required. A phased approach to new infrastructure and site rollout will allow for project benefits to be realized incrementally.
4.2 Software Drupal 7, Apache, MySql and Varnish on Windows or Linux including the following Drupal modules: CHAOS Tool Suite
Views, UI, Services Views
Date/Time
Date/Time
Back up and Migrate
Calendar
Entity API | Entity Tokens
Search / Search API / Apache Solr
Image URL Formatter
Content API
Libraries
Services 3.x
Rules, Rules Forms Support, UI
Auto Load
OpenID ICAM
FaceBook Modules
Twiter Modules
Youtube Module
5. SAAS Pre‐evaluation
1
SaaS Items Silverpop – enterprise email marketing system and services
√
√
DRUPAL MODULE
#
Integration Required
API
All SaaS providers that require integration have APIs that are accessible or Drupal Modules that have been contributed to Drupal.org.
Pending
Silverpop has a Drupal module in development allowing for management of groups; however it has no target contribution or completion date. SilverPop has an API that can be accessed from Drupal however no further information has been provided by SilverPop. The solution shall allow external users to log into the site and receive email without storing their email address in Cook County’s database. The solution shall use SilverPop as the complete outbound email solution. If no module exists when required, a Drupal module, Drupal app or standalone web service will need to be created to support this requirement. Alternatively this solution could be partially replaced with existing Drupal modules for sending email and e‐newsletters.
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
√
Socrata Government Open Data Solution
DRUPAL MODULE
SaaS Items
#
2
API
Integration Required
√
-
No contributed Drupal module exists to seamlessly deliver Socrata out of the box; however, integrations with Drupal can be developed quickly using SODA/REST. Socrata has an API called SODA, Socrata’s Open Data Api that is a set of REST resources that allow developers to manage Socrata entities and data. Integration is required. 3
BrowseAloud – Screen reader assistive technology
-
-
-
The BrowseAloud screen reader provides a free solution (alternate paid solutions include JAWS etc.) to site users that wish to experience an audio version of the site. No direct integration with this application is expected and no comparable Drupal Module exists. The link was broken to download the application from the vendors site at time of testing. http://www.browsealoud.com/page.asp?pg_id=80096. Browse Aloud also has a version not requiring download called Browse Aloud +. Browse Aloud+ worked however; setup may prove difficult for Visually impaired users, the target audience of the application. Other alternatives that do not require set up of any kind will be reviewed during implementation, if required. 4
Facebook – Social Media
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
√
-
-
-
√
-
-
-
-
-
√
-
-
Many Drupal Modules are available. Integration required. 5
Many Drupal modules are available. Integration is required. 6
YouTube ‐ Social Video Network
Many Drupal modules are available. Integration is required. 7
PRISM ‐ MBE compliance application/tracking services
Site links to PRISM portal. UX integration only. 8
Granicus ‐ meeting video streaming/archiving
UX integration only. 9
VitalChek - Credit card payment services
UX integration only. 10
CHASE/JP Morgan Pay Connexion
UX integration only.
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
11
Google Analytics (Site Analytics)
√
DRUPAL MODULE
SaaS Items
#
Integration Required
API
-
√
Multiple Drupal modules exist. The Google analytics module allows for seamless integration of GA and allows for tracking of specific file downloads as well as standard GA functionality. 12
Google Calendar ‐ Multiple county calendars roll up into single county calendar
√
√
-
No Drupal 7 module is available. Integration may be required if no suitable replacement is found. Multiple competing Drupal calendaring modules are available supporting (iCal) and could add additional value though deeper integration with other content and process within the content environment. The use of internal Drupal calendar modules will require code enhancements to provide the roll up calendaring required. 13
Flickr/ SmugMug photos (not heavily used)
√
-
√
No Drupal SmugMug module currently exists. Multiple Drupal Flickr modules exist as well as some integration with other photo services. 14
Survey Monkey – Online survey tool
√
-
-
No Drupal module exists. The Survey Monkey API will allow for deeper integration if required. Surveying in Drupal using native content type submission and the Webforms module provides deeper integration. Retaining use of the external service will provide a mechanism for obtaining survey results without allowing submissions into the CMS from non‐authenticated users. 15
√
MuniCode
√
-
Municode is a third party site that stores and delivers municipal codes. http://www.municode.com/. Integration shall include enabling agencies to easily embed links to relevant codes. Other items TBD.
6. Conclusion In conclusion, all known requirements have been validated with Drupal as the core platform for content management, delivery and development. It is recommended to proceed with Drupal as the singular chosen platform for all public facing content management and delivery. The first milestone of the assessment has concluded with the delivery of this document. Feedback and signoff on this document is required to move forward with the SOW development in milestone 2. Sign off on this document also signifies approval of the previously delivered, Clarity Bench Marking/Usability Study document.
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Assessment of CC Website Redesign Draft IA/Taxonomy/Approach/SAAS Pre-eval/Tech Outline
Sincerely, Clarity Partners, LLC
Accepted and agreed, Cook County Bureau of Technology
______________________________ Insert Name as Signature ______________________________ Title ______________________________ Date
© 2012 Clarity Partners, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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