Plaza Status
Scott Kehoe, Unidata Web Developer
February 27, 2003

During the past several months the main focus of development has been on improving usability and making it easier for Unidata staff to add content to the site. At the time of closing out our first community survey on usability, there were still mixed opinions on the sites ease of use so there will be an ongoing effort to improve this.

Specific efforts made to improve usability include:

• Better naming of links on the home page. There was some confusion caused by the naming conventions used in first version of the site.
• Improved site search. The site search now uses a combined Google / Inktomi searching solution to return more relevant results and can now include results from UCAR and the Internet as well as Unidata.
• Simplified story posting process.
• Removal of pop-up windows when browsing to different domains. We received a very lengthy critique on this subject and took the advice of the community.
• Improved site registration.

Efforts have also been made to use the site to streamline the Unidata support process by providing web-based support. To present, we have received no negative feedback about this and will continue to build upon the support capabilities of the site by adding a tie-in to FAQO and by providing solutions to common issues based on the users’ query.

Currently, we are gauging community interest in seeing posts from other UCAR divisions and programs on the Unidata site. The response to this has been very positive. We feel that this will not only provide our community with easier access to the information they are interested in, but also foster more collaborations between Unidata and similar programs.

We intend to begin another site redesign (mostly code-based to allow for more flexibility and better collaboration) before the fall. At that time we will more closely address future plans, include site personalization and access to collaborative tools. It is highly likely that this will be done in close collaboration with other groups in UOP and UCAR.