The IMFs External Website Finding Content Fast Central Bank

1
The IMFs External WebsiteFinding Content Fast
Central Bank Financial Agencies Librarians
Workshop Washington, D.C. September 16,
2002IMF External WebsiteJohannes Wolff -
Information Officer IMFp 1-202-623-6353
email JWolff_at_imf.org
2
The IMFs External WebsiteFinding Content Fast

• Contents
• www.imf.org - what and why
• Site design structuring content
• Interface design navigating content
• Page design presenting content
• Content design writing content
• Search design finding content
• www.imf.org dos and donts

3
www.imf.org - what

• Website was launched in 1996 to provide faster
  and easier access to published information.
• Then -- news items, like press releases and
  Annual Report
• Now -- thousands of other documents and
  publications

4
www.imf.org - why (1)

• a) WS helps to satisfy the public s demand for
  more openness and transparency of the IMF ? WS
  is a means of quickly making available and
  accessible the - increasing volume of the
  institutions documents and publications.

5
www.imf.org - why (2)

• b) WS allows IMF to more actively explain its
  work to its worldwide audience ? Aiming to
  improve the publics understanding of the
  institutions work

6
www.imf.org - why (3)

• Art vs. Engineering Two basic approaches to
  design The artistic ideal of expressing yourself
  and the engineering idea of solving a problem
  (i.e. finding information) for a customer.
  (Jakob Nielsen)
• Usability is central, not technical prowess gt
  worldwide audience

7
Site design structuring content

• Well planned, thought through and pretested site
  structure is one of the basic ways of structuring
  content
• Problems mushrooming, internal versus external
  orientation
• Problem control, who which department(s)-
  is/are managing the external site and is/are
  responsible for the posting of content

8
Site Design file and directory naming
conventions (1)

• A standardized directory structure is one of the
  most powerful ways of segmenting content on a web
  site. A well planned structure together with well
  conceived filenames will allow for the
  segmenting, sorting and displaying of data in
  many different ways.
• When adding a new content category, we think
  carefully about how you may wish to reuse the
  content in other parts of your site.

9
Site Design file and directory naming
conventions (2)

• Languages When creating a directory structure
  and file naming convention for new content,
  create a directory for the default language.?
  Always attempt to use an international standard
  first and if none is available, check for an
  internal standard before creating a new
  convention.

10
Site Design file and directory naming
conventions (3)

• /external/np/sec/pn/2001/eng/pn0151.htm
  (default)
• /external/np/sec/pn/2001/fre/pn0151.htm
• ? eng and fre are the ISO standard codes for
  English and French respectively.

11
Interface design navigating content

• Headers and footers (breadth)
• Breadcrumb navigation (depth)
• Hyperlinks default colors and underlined
• Option to re-order content (title, date, topic,
  country)

12
Page design presenting content

• Adhere to style guide to ensure layout
  consistency throughout the site
• Use page templates for handling document types
• Legible (sans serif) fonts
• Positive text (black text on white background)
• Avoid (distracting) graphics, reduce them in size

13
Content design writing content

• Short
• Plain
• Chunked
• Error free
• Up to date

14
Search design - finding content

• Indexing all words is not enough !!!
• Nielsen study
• 1/3 of users in focus groups used search
• Rarely more than two attempts
• Success rate decreased when users had to refine
  their search
• Sophisticated search, simple to use, succeeding
  with first query

15
Search design - finding content - visibility

• Search box not a search link
• Search box visible on every page

16
Search design - finding content - query entry (1)

• Make simple search the default search
• Distinguish unmistakably between simple and
  advanced search
• Provide a clearly marked link from the default
  search to advanced search
• Make default search simple to use
• Do not distinguish between upper and lower case
  characters in the search box

17
Search design - finding content - query entry (2)

• Explain the scope of the search
• Entire site
• Part of the site explicitly selected by user
  (limited search with explicit scope)
• Part of the site previously selected by user
  (limited search with implicit scope)

18
Search design - finding content - query entry (3)

• Make it possible to search particular segments
  of the site only.
• Offer the user options Do you want to search
  the entire site, just publications, or only these
  search results pages.
• Allow for the search within a search (refinement
  of previous search)

19
Search design - finding content - query entry (4)

• Make search error tolerant
• Tolerate spelling errors
• Search engine could provide spell-check function
• Make frequent misspellings aliases of the
  correct words

20
Search design - finding content - query entry (5)

• Synonyms
• Accept synonyms typically used by users
• Search should recognize synonyms users use, even
  if the synonyms dont appear on the site
• Return the same results page whether the user
  uses the correct term or the synonym
• Give the user (politely) the correct term
• Elicit synonyms from the user
• Support variant forms of keywords

21
Search design - finding content - query entry (6)

• Accommodate multiple-word input
• Recognize all possible search operators
• AND ( ) , etc.gt Check search logs for
  unexpected search characters or strings
• Ask clarifying question when you detect potential
  search operators

22
Search design - finding content - result display
(1)

• Provide relevant information about the found
  items. Always include the following in a search
  results pages
• Short description
• Search criteria
• Scope (website areas covered by search)
• Items found (total number of search results)
• Avoid using technical jargon on search results
  pages (All results displayed, Items 1-4 of 4
  or Category Matches)

23
Search design - finding content - result display
(2)

• Offer appropriate sorting facilities/navigation
  mechanism
• Alphabetically (Results by Title A An, Ap
  Ar)
• Date (Results by Date)
• Weight (Results by Relevancy)-gt even though it
  might be of limited value
• Publications page

24
Search design - finding content - result display
(3)

• Show why results are included
• For each search result show where the search
  engine found the keyword. Highlight the keyword
  and show the sentences surrounding the keyword
• Beware of long lists (only a few look past page
  3)
• Beware of short lists
• When search returns only one matching result,
  users expect to be taken directly to the
  page/document

25
Search design - finding content - result display
(4)

• Provide special treatment of frequent queries
  (often, vague, too many results, single page
  overview)
• Customize searches (suggested starting points)
  Users are driven to a certain page as a starting
  point for their query
• Customize searches (canned searches) Links which
  display results of a customized query

26
Search design - finding content - result display
(5)

• Support search for FAQs that do not relate to
  documents and publications (visiting hours,
  tours, library access, etc.)
• Tell users what you dont have

27
Search design - finding content - error recovery
(1)

• Make an effort helping users recover from errors.
  gt Create an effective No Results page
• Avoid technical jargon, speak plainly (express
  yourself as if the user was standing in front of
  you) Dont say No Results found. Try again!,
  do not use default server messages for
  functionality errors as 404 Page Not Found
• Have error messages reviewed by users and peers

28
Search design - finding content - error recovery
(2)

• Make it clear why the search failed
• We understood your request, but we do not have
  the information/document/publication/ data.
• We understood your request. The information is
  not yet available, but will be made available.
• We did not understand your request for... .

29
Search design - finding content - error recovery
(3)

• Tell people how to proceed, how to recover from
  the error
• Suggest other ways of obtaining the information
  (TOC, Site Map, FAQ, etc.)
• Give examples Users view examples, but do not
  read much text
• Ask users to check their spelling or provide
  bad-spelling tolerance
• Ask users to broaden their search
• Consider offering help via email or phone

30
Search Design How - Meta Tags (1)

• The use of Meta Tags is a very potent method of
  segmenting/displaying content on a web site.
• Every file should have a title and a date in the
  corresponding Meta Tag fields. Titles should be
  unique and informative.
• IMF WS uses the other Meta Tags in HTML files to
  provide additional information about the file.

31
Search Design How Meta Tags (2)

• Meta Tag Fields
• ltMETA NAME"Creator" CONTENT"International
  Monetary Fund"gt
• ltMETA NAME"Subject" CONTENT""gt
• ltMETA NAME"Description" CONTENT"Each Public
  Information Notice contains a background section,
  a table of selected economic indicators, and an
  Executive Board assessment."gt
• ltMETA NAME"Date" CONTENT"2001-05-21"gt

32
Search Design How Meta Tags (3)

• Meta Tag Fields
• ltMETA NAME"Type" CONTENT"Public Information
  Notice"gt
• ltMETA NAME"Country" CONTENT"Lesotho"gt
• ltMETA NAME"ISOCODE" CONTENT""LSO"gt
• ltMETA NAME"Region" CONTENT""gt
• ltMETA NAME"Keywords" CONTENT""gt
• ltMETA NAME"Language" CONTENT"eng"gt

33
Search Design How Meta Tags (4)

• Meta Tag values help determine the relevancy of
  this document in a search and can also be used to
  sort and display content on your site.
• If HTML code and Meta Tag information is
  incorrect, some pages wont be indexed by search
  engines, the index results will be less than
  desirable and the pages will not be properly
  sorted and displayed on your site.

34
Search Design How - Meta Tags (5)

• PDFs should have titles and dates, too.
• Make use of the document info fields.
• You might use a database to create HTML pages
  with meta data about the PDFs. These HTML pages
  can be indexed by search engines and thus the PDF
  can be found.

35
IMF WS Donts (1)

• Never remove content from the site.
• Avoid moving pages.
• Be wary of client side code (JavaScript) and
  plugins (Flash).
• Dont use web editors which generate proprietary
  code.

36
IMF WS Donts (2)

• Dont use frames.
• Watch the use of comments in your code.
• Be wary of using binary files like Word, Excel or
  WordPerfect on your web site.? Convenient, but
  proprietary formats, danger of distributing
  viruses, legal issues. (PDFs, while binary, are
  not known to spread viruses.)

37
IMF WS Donts (3)

• Dont rely on the Save As HTML in any of the MS
  products. ? The output may contain proprietary
  code and rarely displays the same in IE versus
  Netscape.

38
IMF WS Dos (1)

• Plan
• Standardize
• Be Consistent? even if the code is wrong, if it
  is consistent, its much easier to find mistakes
  and correct them.
• Stick to your style guide

39
IMF WS Dos (2)

• Proofread
• Review your pages in different versions of
  Netscape and Internet Explorer? IE is much more
  forgiving of HTML errors and might - sometimes -
  mask problematic code. For example A page that
  is missing a table close lt/tablegt will display
  correctly in IE but will display a blank page in
  Netscape.

40
IMF WS Dos (3)

• Stay behind the curve.
• Keep it light.Are all those graphics really
  necessary on a Banking website which provides
  economic/ financial information? If yes, minimize
  graphics before using them on your site.
• Consider (carefully) the use of databases.

41
WoW

• Keep the maintenance issue in mind. As your site
  grows maintenance issues are - or will become
  central to your site. -gt When making a decision
  on site, navigation, page, content and search
  design, always consider the implications for
  maintaining your site.

42

• Questions ?
• Or
• Comments ?

43

• Thank You !

44
Literature

• Designing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen
• Dont Make Me Think, by Steve Krug
• Web Usability For Dummies, by Richard Mander and
  Bud Smith
• Web Style Guide Basic Design Principles for
  Creating Web Sites at http//info.med.yale.edu/cai
  m/manual/)
• Search, Report by Nielsen Norman Group