Rebuilding the public site, pt. 1

Five months ago, OpenSourcery embarked on a mission to revamp its website. We had two primary goals: to update our site from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, and to improve the visitor experience. With this blog we're adding a third goal: to document our process from design and content perspectives.

The central conceit of this series is that, as software developers working on our own site (in effect, acting as both client and shop), our work is never done. We want to own the fact that development requires a series of compromises. The trick is to prioritize, iterate, and create value at every step. So we invite you to peer behind the curtain as we transform our site from the screenshot you see below to the site to which you've navigated today to future, more perfect versions.

THE PAST [The following image, too, represents improvements over earlier versions. -Ed.]:

So, while the website you see today is the product of improvements, not least of which lie "below the surface," it can and must continue to improve.

The plan is to divide improvements into the content and design arenas and to deploy improvements great and small every week. The content arena includes copy, messaging, creation and maintenance of a coherent site personality, and high-level decisions regarding the priority of content types; the design arena encompasses interface, architecture, and beautiful-making.

In the interest of keeping this posting relatively brief and introductory, I'll end it here. Please check back for updates on our initial roadblocks, how we overcame them, and what we plan to do from here (a classic narrative).

Thank you for reading.