Psych.org was completely updated this week...

wbruce — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:59:00 GMT

After nearly fifteen months of planning and development, the joint project between Information Technology and the Office of Communications and Public Affairs is finally out of the box. The APA now has a new website and for the first time in its history, the site is backed by a full--featured content management system. The previous site consisted of more than 30,000 files and all content was managed individually by staff. All pages were "hand-coded" and all content required several iterations of quality checks. The new site uses the GM5 content management system form Syscom and integrates with the association management system in our back-office.

Once all the launch-day glitches were resolved, I began thinking about how far the site has come over the years and decided to dig up some history...

The first APA website was launched in 1996:

It received its first makeover in 1997:

Then in 1998, the APA settled on this general feel which lasted for several years:

In early 2002, the site was given a much needed update:

Then in late 2003, we arrived at this:

...which was updated slightly in 2006 to this:

Now, once again we've updated the site and it has again improved in many ways. So far, the overwhelming majority of feedback has been positive. Some aspects of the site may take some getting used to. Aside from having a much more modern "look and feel," the new site is a huge step away from the old navigation system. Most of the previous versions of the site took an organizational chart perspective to grouping information, but the new site is our first attempted at audience based navigation. We believe this is a more efficient approach to navigation and that the majority of our users will adapt quickly. Time will be the real measure though...

I am already thinking of what should come next for the site. There are a few nifty technologies on the horizon that may mature into real opportunities in a year or so. But for now, feel free take a look at the new www.psych.org and let us know what you think. You can post a comment to this blog or you can fill out the feedback form here.

Search results matching tag 'History'

Psych.org was completely updated this week...