[Sigia-l] Seeking Best Practices: order for chaos

Jon Littell jonlittell at mac.com
Mon Sep 12 13:26:43 EDT 2005


How do you create a “wrapper” for huge, decentralized organization??

I'm working with a large, completely decentralized (non-profit)  
organization. They have a highly diverse audience NO single top-level  
governing body. Instead there are a dozen autonomous groups which  
fulfill distinct mandates. Each group has their own site (and  
sometimes multiple subsites.) The majority of their audience, is  
unaware of the structure and perceives them as a single entity.

So, here is the challenge: to create an umbrella site that allows  
diverse users to discover the breadth of content, tools and resources  
that all of the autonomous agencies provide. And then, gracefully  
transfer the user to the appropriate site.  When I started the  
project, I thought of departments within universities. But university  
departments are more distinct—this organization has overlap between  
divisions. Besides, university sites are more often examples of  
"Worst Practices"—individual department sites cobbled together with  
almost no connection with the overall site.

REQUEST—Any sites to review for best practices:
     * a gateway site that coalesces and demonstrates a large variety  
of content.
     * unlike a "portal", it needs to appear to be a single entity,  
with a consistent brand
     * a navigation tool (or wrapper) that can contain multiple  
sites, allows them to be independent and maintain the global context
     * a particular topic (index?) that displays a range of content  
(perhaps identified by the responsible party)


Thanks
Jon Littell
Sr. User Experience Architect
Hot Studio, San Francisco






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