Thanks to all who participated in our August Web Community Meeting! Your input was invaluable. We discussed the new Template 3.0 component template designs, to-do items for both the new templates and the new profile system, and introduced you to the new suite of Web Group websites.
Template 3.0 Component Template Designs
Last month our design firm, Adoptive, presented the core Template 3.0 designs and we discussed your feedback. This month, we presented the more than 100 component template designs that have been completed.
As a reminder for those who do not actively use Tridion, component templates are the designs given to individual pieces of content on the page (e.g. video galleries, news, profiles, etc.). Each and every element must be designed, both to fit within the overall look and feel of the template and to work together to create numerous content layout combinations.
Unfortunately, the video recording setup this month makes it difficult to hear attendees, but rest assured that we took the feedback we received and asked the designers to make updates. We also ran out of time and only made it through about 50 of the component templates. We met again a week later on September 3rd to finish reviewing the remainder. We've greatly appreciated everyone's feedback, both at the meetings and via email.
Template 3.0 To-Do: Five Items
Aside from reviewing the templates, we highlighted items that will need to be completed before we launch the new templates, including:
1) New Home Page Options
The new templates will offer four different banner images layouts. Web editors, please see the article about the four home page options and then complete this form.
2) New Image Sizes
The new templates will output images for both traditional and retina devices, which are twice the size of the traditional desktop resolution. We are currently analyzing all images published to the live sever that are too small for the new templates. Once we have this report ready, we'll reach out to those web editors whose sites are affected. You can then either replace the image with a larger size or the image will not be displayed when the sites are switched to the new template. We're recommending a minimum size of 1,500 pixels for any image used.
3) Button Icons
The current templates allow editors to upload images to be used with buttons. Template 3.0 creates a standardized iconography set of approximately 25 icons for use with buttons. Our team will work to assign each button the appropriate icon. We'll let web editors know when this is completed and you will be able to review and make changes.
4) Tabbed Search Results
Template 3.0 will move all sites to use the Tabbed Search Results template (see a current example on the YMG website). In advance of the update, we will begin moving all sites into the existing tabbed search results template.
5) Retired Templates
We are creating several new template options in Template 3.0, but will also be retiring a few existing templates that are sparsely used. We'll reach out to those sites affected and make arrangements to transition them to a substitute template.
New Profile System Update
We are deep into development of the new Profile System. We've substantially completed the new data feeds and, this week, began implementing them with the new Template 3.0 profile templates. As we've worked through creating the new system, we've discovered several data issues:
Profile Images
For the first six years the current profile system was online, the vendor discarded the original profile image after creating the small square crop for listing pages and the slightly larger image for profile pages (yes, when we discovered this, we too were in a state of disbelief). We spent the summer combing our archives and were able to find high-resolution versions of approximately 1,000 of the 3,500 profile images. We will be generating lists of the missing images and distributing it to the appropriate web editors. We are still working through options, but the two most viable are to ask faculty if they have a professional headshot they can submit or setup new photo shoots. Stay tuned.
Suffixes
The new system will have a suffix builder that will enable people to create suffixes based on their education or their professional associations. The new functionality will build suffixes from a pre-defined list of options. Since the existing suffix is a free-text field, there could be some data conversion issues. However, it will be important for faculty to enter their education and degrees in the "Education & Training" section of their profile in advance of the new system launch. The suffix builder will use these degrees to help populate the new suffix. We'll provide more detailed information on this in the coming weeks.
Research and Clinical Interests
We will be retiring the free-text research and clinical interests fields in the new profile system. As a replacement, we'll ask faculty to choose keywords from two standardized lists. While not necessary before launch, it would be helpful to ask faculty to begin choosing their standardized keywords (currently available in the existing system).
Publications
The new system will have an integration with PubMed to enable faculty to more easily capture their list of publications. When the new system launches, profiles will be pre-populated with the publications that exist in the current system. Our team has manually retrieved the PubMed ID for the more than 16,500 publications currently in the system! However, to work correctly, we'll need to help each faculty member generate his or her custom PubMed query. We know that many faculty already have this query. We'll be reaching out to web editors in the coming month to help us get these.
New Web Group Websites
As Navarro described in his article "Physician, heal thyself: Web Group Sites Rebuilt," it was high time that we followed our own advice and better organized our websites. To that end, we separated out the Services and Support sections of our site into their own websites. We hope you'll find them easier to navigate and a more delightful experience!