Law School Website Redesign: Opening the Pandora’s Box

Web 2.0 and the CMS took UConn Law deep into the world of distributed website management in 2009.  Everyone is an editor, but no one is in control. 26,000 unmanaged nodes and five years later - the drab spaghetti yarn ball had outstayed its welcome.
 
Join UConn Law ITS and UConn Law Communications for a stroll through the eight months, thousands of man hours, hundreds of meetings, unique collaborations and the sometimes heated (but mostly civilized) tearing down, redesign and successful re-launch of UConn Law’s websites.  Messaging, mockups, information architecture (IA), content development cycles, focus group analysis, content heads, resources, expectations, realities, responsive design, WCAG 2.0, coding standards, the almighty Drupal 7 and the last all-nighter of our careers.
 
How we did it, where to start, what you need, lessons learned and the pitfalls/traps to avoid.
 
Alternate title: “How to build a Law School website (or four) for $80 in Chinese Food”