Creating the New CDISC.org

The Newfangled team has been pretty busy this week... We just launched another brand new website: www.cdisc.org!

This site, for CDISC (Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium), is the first that I've seen through from conception to launch, so I'm personally really excited about it! Plus, this was such an enjoyable project to work on! From productive prototyping meetings and gorgeous design to a flawless whitescreen and thorough content entry– everything went so smoothly.

For Steve G & I, our first big hurdle was to consolidate the navigation. The old CDISC site had four different navigations (see the old homepage image on the right), and they weren't consistent between the homepage and the other pages on the site. It was confusing and difficult to navigate, so we narrowed it down to one main and one global nav.

Shortly after we started, AJ and Frank from CDISC came out to North Carolina for a couple days, and we had an extremely productive face-to-face prototyping session. We rarely get to meet our clients in person, so this was a special treat, and I think it really helped the process.

Next, we handed things over to Justin, who nailed the design on the first try. The first mood board (shown below) was a big hit with the clients, and the rest of the design developed easily from there.

Meanwhile, George started building the whitescreen, and he made some very complicated functionality look easy! Here are a few special features of the site:

• Members Only section: CDISC members can use their log-ins to access additional content
• CDISC Standards: This section allows Members to log in and download files straight off the site, while Non-Members must fill out a form to receive an automated, customizable email with the downloads attached
• ODM Certification and Registered Service Providers charts (shown on the right): These charts are fully editable through the CMS; the client can add to the X & Y axes and choose which boxes are checked
• Education & Events section: The client only has to enter an event into the CMS once, and it will appear on both the main page (with a comprehensive list of all events) and the subpage for that specific event type
• Our Members list: Use this section to search Member companies by name, membership type, or company type

Then came design application, QA, and AJ's valiant content entry efforts. Mike helped push the site live on Wednesday... And now CDISC has a beautiful new website that they can be proud of!  Stay tuned as they continue to roll out new content on their blog, newsletter page, and discussion forum.

Here's one more side-by-side comparison of the old and new sites: the old Standards page on the left, and the new Standards page on the right.