Web Design Status Meeting 6/16/2008

Agenda: Topics to add to agenda? Old business: status since last week --Team review open issues, if any New business: ideas on how to manage this project going forward -- Ann identify work planned to be done before next meeting -- Team create open issues list if appropriate (for review at next meeting)   Attendees: Ed, Walt, Georgette, Phil Ann, Doug [on phone]   Minutes: We reviewed status one-by-one: Georgette -- nothing new this week Phil -- more parks done ... working on Morris County -- so extensive that he has created subregions to show relationships among parks. Doug -- developed new themes and made progress on overview map. Needs feedback on which variant of hike and summary pages should be implemented. The initial team response is that the first mock-up is the preferred one. (This was an open issue from last week.) Once we decide on the theme, Walt will work with Claudio on the implementation. Doug noted that he needs to flush out sub-level images. Once themes are done, there are approx. 40 pages with images that can be implemented. Walt -- Continued to clean up some problems and add the beginning of user documentation intended for the Web Design team (and eventually others). Walt asked that the team be more responsive to his emails -- no one responded to his request for feedback. We discussed different ways of handling email communication among the team -- perhaps using a notification mechanism rather than blasting all email to everyone. Walt will investigate and make recommendation. Walt also reported that Claudio cleaned up a lot of the problems in the IE version of the site. The next thing Claudio needs to focus on are the NICE menus (drop downs) -- and Walt needs to work with him to get him going. Walt has Georgette's list of candidates for the drop downs. Ann -- Reviewed proposal for improving project management -- recommended subteams with Ed, Georgette, Walt as the business model, content and technology team leads. (See attached presentation for lead responsibilites and subteam composition.) Ann also recommended biweekly status meetings. Meetings would be structured in two parts: a one-hour full team status meeting followed by subteam breakouts as needed. The meetings would start at 1:30 instead of 2 and conclude no later than 3:30. The team agreed to try this model, and the next status meeting is scheduled for June 30 at 1:30 pm. Ann also continued the discussion started last week on how best to go live as soon as possible with the hikes database as the main focus of what is new. Walt and Ann proposed making the new site the Home Page for the NYNJTC and have links to the old site for content that has not yet been migrated. Ed preferred a standalone new Hikes site reachable from the old home page, but Walt advised it would be unwieldy and perhaps impossible to do given the DRUPAL interactions with its database. Drupal is not currently structured to enable two versions of a site to run concurrently either. We also discussed how to make it possible to cease updates to the old site as quickly as possible so we can eliminate duplication of effort. With Doug we discussed the need to complete the themeing (how DO you spell that?) for the home page, switch pages and special purpose pages. Doug said he will revisit the Hike of the week promo and highlight areas.   Ann will look further into the Projjex tool for project management to see if it can be used by the team to manage milestones.   The team discussed a number of issues and established action items for those that were not resolved in the meeting. Discussions with no action item: It was noted that a common question from conference members is where can I go for an overnight backpack? and that this really isn't covered by our hikes or parks database right now. Phil went over items on his issues list -- we all liked the subregion concept he introduced for Morris County. It hasn't been decided whether subregion descriptions belong in the regions database or the parks database -- or perhaps both. Action items:   (Note ... in the future, we should track these using the Tasks capability of this group. Until I can clean up the old stuff in Tasks and add in the action items from meetings, I'll simply list them here.) Team and Walt: everyone to look at Doug's mockups (located here: http://www.dougcleek.com/HikeDBResultsCreativeSets.pdf.zip ) and send Walt your preferred content for the hike features list and for the fields displayed in the search result table. Walt will get feedback from Dan and summarize and present consensus list at next status meeting so implementation can occur. Walt and Claudio: work to implement results of item 1 once consensus is reached. Doug: In driving instructions, add link to Google map; In hike page, add link to park info (our park info if it exists, else the park's URL) Walt: Figure out how to add photo credits and document what to do Walt: Make recommendation on whether to change way we do email communication (i.e. should we use group posts on web site with notification to go look there). Doug: Flush out sub-level images; revisit hike of the week promo and highlight area Walt and Ann: further define what's needed to go live asap (how to use new site for new stuff and old site for what's not yet migrated) Walt: Post job description for Drupal skills Ann: Take another look at Projjex for possible TC use Walt: Look at Phil's Hackleberry State Park description to see why there are line break issues; Change Mt. Bike to Mtn. bike in features