Overview
This article is intended for content librarians or admins on The Fountain to understand how best to organize divisional pages and content. It covers the role of content librarians in deciding their division page's organizational structure, content guidelines to follow, and how to intentionally plan before building a page.
Divisional Page Organization Best Practices
The Content Librarians' Role in Organizing Pages
Every Fountain divisional page is managed by one or two content librarians. It is up to the librarians to determine the best organizational structure for their page. However, there are some best practices we ask each page to follow. If you ever have any questions or would like to discuss the best way to share information, please reach out to The Fountain admin team. They would be happy to walk through it with you.
Following Content Guidelines
- Each division, department, or office is limited to one page only.
- Department and office pages will be nested under their respective division page.
- That page should:
- Feature current, relevant content
- Stay updated regularly
- Include links to more detailed information housed elsewhere
- Avoid duplicating or storing full content directly on The Fountain
- That page should not include:
- Policies, procedures, forms, documents, etc. (you can link to them but they are not stored on The Fountain)
- Long-term or static content (The Fountain is not a website, knowledge base, or file storage location)
- Creation of multiple pages of content
- News, events, etc. that ARE NOT directly relevant to employees
Planning the Organizational Structure Intentionally
Navigation should always be planned from the perspective of the user of information – the viewers to your page. Planning effective navigation involves considering not just the information you want to present, but also thinking about the information your viewers want or need to consume. The consumer typically doesn't care about the type of content – they care about the purpose or subject of the content. When you consider the purpose or subject, you’ll want to keep all items related to that subject on the same page.
Identifying Major Areas of Information
Think through the major areas of information your division might have. For our University, those divisions are often already delineated by departments. For example, Student Success and Engagement includes the Career Development Center, Strategic Partnerships, and Registration & Academic Records. Depending on the needs of the divisional page, the content librarian might choose to develop a page for each of those main departments. Then all the information you want to share from those departments would live on those pages.
Using Pages Intentionally
The key to pages is to keep them intentional. If you have more than 5 pages linking off your divisional page, you should carefully consider if the pages are of benefit to your users. More often than not, if you have more than 5 pages linking off, you’re sending users too far in and you will lose them in the clicks.
Do not create a different page for every subcategory of information. Pages are not like chapters in a book. Rather, pages are like separate books in a series. For example, IT has a page dedicated to Workday. All the information for Workday should live on that page. They should not create separate pages for Workday Student, Workday HR items, Workday Finance items, etc. Keeping all the information on one page allows you to tell a coherent and organized story. Use the various webpart options to break up the content on the page. (See below for more information on webparts.)
A rare case is to create very intentional pages for information users view often. These pages can only be created by admins and are reserved for rare, large-scale university-wide programs or initiatives. These pages are exclusively hosted on the main Fountain page.
Avoiding Duplication of the University Website
Divisional pages should not be created to replicate the University’s webpages. As you move information for internal audiences from the website to The Fountain, do not simply re-create many pages. Instead, present your information as a cohesive, organized narrative, with the goal of anticipating what users need to know.
Outlining and Mapping Before Building
Before you add pages, it is important to outline your content and map out a plan. Consider what your users need to know and how they can most efficiently access it. Again, look at how you can use the webparts to keep all information for a specific division or subject together on one page, instead of creating multiple pages. The Fountain’s admin team is happy to consult with you to develop a roadmap for your divisional page, if needed.
More Resources
Still Need Help?
For further questions, please contact The Fountain staff or your Content Librarian.