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www.ietf.org Revamp Update
16 Jun 2016
I wanted to provide a brief update on the the progress of the www.ietf.org website revamp project, which began in earnest last year and is scheduled to move into production by the end of this year.
As the scope of work developed with input from the IETF community specified, we have been working with the selected vendor, Torchbox, to develop a site that reflects the IETF’s position as the premiere Internet standards organization. Beyond updating and improving navigation and the visual design, the revamped site will work better for all classes of devices, including smart phones and tablets. It is also designed to improve accessibility and to work well for visitors using low-bandwidth and high-latency connections.
Of course the revamped website must work well for current IETF participants. But it also aims to serve *potential* IETF contributors by making it easier for them to get started in the IETF, and it aims to ensure that even people who aren’t likely to be contributors can understand what the IETF does and how it works. A goal of the project was to develop a design informed by data, so we interviewed people from each of these groups. We also looked at usage data available from the current website and benchmarked against websites of similar organizations.
Since sharing the initial design and prototype at IETF 93, the project team has been working on fine-tuning the design and transitioning content. The IETF Tools team has also been involved so that the information about RFCs, IETF Areas, and working groups displayed on www.ietf.org is drawn directly from datatracker.ietf.org. This will make it easier to keep the www.ietf.org site current, and provide opportunities to guide people to the ongoing work of the IETF.
Work is still underway to finalize the content and features on the new site, including additional testing with the target audiences to be sure it works for them. The current project schedule calls for an extended “preview” of the new site so the entire IETF community will have a chance to try it out before everything is finalized. I expect to have a further update on the exact timeline in the next few weeks.
Joe Hildebrand, Project Manager
Example Screenshots
An example of the responsive design for an IETF Blog post