Redesigning the ALCF Website
Leading the facility’s website redesign project where we are completely rethinking the way we handle online documentation and user support.
BACKGROUND
The current website was built seven years ago in 2011 as the public face of a growing DOE leadership computing facility. Since then, the facility has increased in size, staff talent has continued to grow and we have expanded efforts in machine learning, data science, industrial outreach, training, software development, research, and visualization. The facility has also been awarded the nation’s first exascale supercomputer and, when it comes online, we will have an increased amount of traffic to our site.
In addition to the evolution of the facility, the software used by the current website has released a new version with enhanced features. The new software release will bring our site into today’s website standards by using HTML5, CSS3, built-in web services, inline editing and mobile readiness.
APPROACH
ALCF’s primary audiences, supercomputer users and the program officers of our funding agency, have different needs. Our supercomputer users need to find information on managing their science campaigns and documentation on how to use the supercomputers. Our program officers need to find information about our science projects, high-impact results published in articles and science journals, and ALCF outreach activities. Bridging silos of staff expertise, I’ve formed two working groups consisting of members in leadership, system administrators, computational and computer scientists, user support, and communications to focus on these top website stakeholders.
The working group responsible for our supercomputer users leverages the work completed in the UX deep dive project to get us to our end goal faster. Our focus is on designing a website that encompasses the entire experience of our users, from the first time they learn about us to getting access on our machines to managing their projects to learning new techniques and tools.
The working group responsible for our program officers concentrates on extending our current offerings and anticipating future needs so that the website is built to scale as our facility grows and changes.
PROJECT STATUS
I’ve held several working meetings with each group to concentrate on different aspects of the website. To my surprise, some of the members of the working group didn’t even know each other and were hesitant to share. To get people comfortable talking, I held a brainstorming session to capture goals and requirements. We did an exercise using the MoSCoW method to prioritize features and exercise using card sorting methods to create the initial site map.
Thus far, the teams have developed the list of requirements, features, and site map. I have sketched mobile layouts and refined the support center prototype to reflect our findings. We’ve provided our work to the designers so they can start their project discovery and design process.