More times than not a small business needs a website rebuilt from scratch. But typically the website is just the tip of the iceberg and this project was one of those.
The first impulse was to scrap everything and start fresh.
Instead I turned this into a service design project. Breaking down the project and then rebuilding with with remote tools and collaboration. Making it easier to maintain and be sustainable.
We I initially didn't touch the existing website except for needed content updates. Instead we evaluated the email communication channel and started a content-first approach by conducting a full content audit - This was more difficult than it should have been until we started using we remote collaboration tools in place - porting to google docs took some coaxing. But was a necessary first step. Content Audits are scary and really daunting but are refreshing when completed.
The primary work was a constant audit and a redesign of information architecture. We started to utilize tools like Google Drive instead of Word, so that there could be collaborative editing and sharing.We also moved to dropbox for the same reason, trying to move away from mass emailing of images and PDFs and word docs, especially when editing was involved.
