Optimizing the haystack: Improving findability in content-heavy websites: DrupalCon Portland 2022

Speakers: Sam Zimmerman, Michele Ann Jenkins, and Sujatha Varadharajan

With an ever-growing amount of content on the web and our perpetually shrinking attention spans, website planning and design must increasingly focus on findability. Site visitors want to find the information they need quickly and easily. Low findability is not only frustrating for users, but can also undermine performance goals and the perception of the credibility of a site.

Now apply this problem to the scale required by an international NGO like the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) — with hundreds of authors producing content and an array of document types and language translations available across multiple databases. It was both a challenge for the general public to learn about the NGO’s work and for professionals to access niche information.

In this session, Blue State, Dovecot, and Axelerant discuss our approach to the migration of OHCHR’s 60K+ page website from Sharepoint to Drupal 8. This project highlights the importance of a holistic taxonomy framework for improving the ability of users to find the content they need, bridge all areas of the site, and even reducing the editorial overhead.

Attendees will learn best practices for approaching migrations of enterprise-scale sites, focusing on taxonomy and content modeling ahead of UX and technical planning. All roles participating in a migration effort – business owners, content strategists, UX designers, Drupal engineers and process managers – will gain insights for complex migrations.

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