Most software product managers (aka: referees) that I’ve worked with are sensitive to both the creative and technical natures of  UI projects.  They can help teams mitigate the misunderstandings that happen when humans work with each other, such as:

• Questions about requirements could feel like alien invaders probing for weaknesses
• Constructive suggestions might be taken as a good slapping with heavy criticism
• Exciting ideas might be heard as threats of new gnarly work if approved
• The needs of the end user could be seen as hilarious problems for another day

So product managers, this one is for you.  You see the user acceptance gain with the internal pain, even though the balance of the perceived heavy slapping may be in – or completely out of – your hands.

We often see companies make large changes to their online properties to highlight their branded names, most popular content, and top-converting transaction points without first considering customers, impact on search rankings, or prospective user experiences. Having a structured  approach to integrating new features and content can help boost your company’s credibility and more easily scale web properties for the long haul.

Here are a few examples of corporate publication strategies for delivering content to users based on the audience, from the world’s largest corporate website:

Parent site: http://www.microsoft.com – Core competencies of who you are and what you do. Main navigation umbrella. Contains subdirectories (aka. folders) of grouped information.

Subdomain: http://support.microsoft.com – Focused on specific user needs. May have sub-brand opportunities and extended navigation options.

Child site: http://www.xbox.com – Extends the brand family, and delivers a different navigation and architecture to a completely different audience.

With change come opportunities.

To subdomain or not to subdomain?

What deserves a subdomain? If content is different enough from the core website content and is focused on specific user needs, then a subdomain may make sense. Support and community content such as intranets, blogs, and extranets are usually no-brainers.

Publishing a subdomain may help your search marketing efforts, because you are elevating deep content to the level 1 navigation. But how do you really know if you should invest in creating enough content to substantiate a subdomain, complete with its own navigation system?

Just the facts

Leverage your web activity logs to justify that your existing user community has real needs. Measuring brand equity in terms of return website visitors, subscriptions, and webinars can help build a business case for gradual transitions and reduced drop. And in all of your spare time, stack that with events, email campaigns, search marketing stats, direct mail and other offline channels to help prioritize online changes.

Get customers involved.  Asking customers what they think can build loyalty, enhance sense of community and possibly improve your content if you implement enhancements they ask for. These folks can be very convincing on the big screen at a company meeting, whether they are telling the camera what really stinks about your product or, more rarely, what they like about your support area.

Got New Brand?

Many web architecture changes stem from new company brand initiatives. It may not be a one-step process to jam in two new product families of content under the corporate umbrella – even though that is what the acquisition strategy document says you have to do. If the user needs are very different, then content delivery may need to be tailored.

Rebranding is a hassle all in itself, so we usually ask for a media calendar to help guide your transition to avoid surprises, design and development re-work. Be a good corporate citizen and request the new brand guidelines, stylebook, or whatever the brand police are calling it. This should include web styles, high-resolution versions of your corporate and product logos, corporate imagery, iconography, and video – and not just pantone colors and print specs.

If none of these assets exist, or they are old or just poor, then you may have an opportunity to drive them yourself. If your team is the first to implement “new and improved” corporate guidelines for the web, then you may stand a better chance of publishing quickly if what you produce is better than what is currently published live. You can make the brand police happy, or better yet, completely unresponsive, by inviting them to contribute to your launch plan to include the live publication checklist.

Workflow, Q/A, test and production environments
Defines the tactical chain of content creation, approvals, responsibilities and even how files get transferred live for the world to see every last typo. Typically includes a content creation and delivery schedule that hopefully synchs-up with your website project plan. Content may be king but it rarely shows up on time.
You don’t have a test server? Do you mean you just see your revisions on the live site right or wrong? If any hardware or software is needed to support the new site, then your list should have these as mini projects for IT or your hosting provider to manage.
Software? For a website? Yes. Even small, static brochure-ware sites may need simple file upload utilities, an updated database to store information or CRM integration for capturing and managing leads.

DNS – Domain name System
I send many clients to the Wikipedia definition of this one. Once there is an understanding, the DNS topic opens up all sorts of questions. Online publication strategies ranging from what should be a subdomain vs. a subdirectory to the list of mail servers that accept email for your new domain name.

Search marketing
Holy crap! Keyword strategy needs QA too? Oh yes! Several search marketing channels weigh-in here.
Link strategies, pay for placement URL updates, tracking codes, website submittals, a skillion redirects and beefy, tactical details are worth documenting before you lose PageRank or have your 404 error page be your #1 page view next month. Note to self: things like mapping and re-directing all of your old page URLs to your new page URLs can take time. By the way, did you write content for a friendly 404 page to include a brief sitemap or do you plan to scare off prospective customers with a scary, Page Not Found error message?
These are items that typically nail customers in the 11th hour. If you choose to skip it and do it at a fictional time called later, then be prepared for some ugly feedback.

Timeline
Did I mention this already? Don’t underestimate the roll-out time it can take to formalize a checklist if you work in a large enterprise. I witnessed one web steering committee invest at least six meetings that I was invited to and shitloads of email over approximately two or three months just assigning and updating roles and responsibilities to this ever-growing checklist.
I have also seen this checklist used as a weapon in meetings where only my contact has a copy (that we drafted for him). He just kept asking questions from the list; the rest of the suits just looked really inexperienced and had no choice but to let him lead the effort. He told me that he managed the checklist opposed to his internal web project timeline or our vendor project timeline, because it was easier and it all fit on two pages including everyone’s names, deliverables, status notes, delivery dates and phone numbers. He kept it in a folder tucked under his blotter like a secret and the site was a big success for him.
Seriously, this simple checklist can help you organize your initiative and maybe you’ll get to tell folks way above your pay grade what to do and when.

NOTE: A majority of this rant was focused on the common holes in the new site publication scenarios and assumes that usability best practices are being observed for the most part in the design and development process.