Rebuild/Migration

Exploratorium.edu was one of the first 600 websites on the internet, back when if you wanted a domain you had to call a guy and ask. In its lifetime it moved into Drupal CMS, grew by tens of thousands of pages, and proliferated in designs, microsites, and overall complexity. With the clock ticking on Drupal 7 deprecation and the backend code a hot mess, we launched a lift-and-shift migration to secure the site.

Site homepage — Before

My role: Project Manager

  • Wrote scope, timeline, risk assessment, stakeholder and communications management plans

  • Facilitated Senior Leadership presentations of ongoing progress

  • Managed consulting relationship and $500k budget

  • Facilitated cross-functional and consulting collaborations in JIRA and Teamwork

Task prioritization exercise

Process

Collaborators Consultant, Museum managing directors, Media Studio Director (hired mid-project)
Interviews Marketing, Content editors, IT integrations
Select steps Competitive analysis, Information architecture review, User stories, Entity mapping, Content type creation, SEO risk mitigation, Calendar redesign, archive strategy, and full site migration

Project outcomes

Improved Security and Functionality

  • Secure website with sustainable maintenance—over 6,000 pages archived

  • Logically structured & functional back-end

Increased Efficiency

  • Simplified internal workflow and content management

Brand Extension

  • Applied consistent brand across website for the first time in the website’s history

Building Relationships

  • Strong, productive collaboration with consultant

Next

Exploratorium Information Architecture