No project has consumed more of my time at The Heritage Foundation than the redesign of Heritage.org. What started in fall 2008 and progressed through all of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 finally arrived today with a big splash. The modern look and improved organization of Heritage’s wealth of content are getting positive reviews.

Planning for the new website started shortly after I became editor-in-chief of Heritage.org (a job I no longer have). Soon afterward, I discovered the shortfalls of the existing system. We made some tweaks to the homepage in January 2008 and, working closely with Heritage’s online communications director, we put together a small team to oversee the branding and content management of the redesigned site.

Heritage contracted with two local Virginia firms on the design and implementation. Viget Labs of Falls Church helped with the user experience and designed the site after speaking with key constituents on Capitol Hill, in the press and among Heritage’s 600,000+ members. Siteworx of Reston installed the content management system and integrated more than 50,000 pieces content from the old CMS to the new one.

Of course, the staff at Heritage deserves most of the credit: Maria Sousa, John O’Keefe, Steve Sharman and Joel Smith for their technical expertise, Genevieve Wood and Keesha Bullock for their help on branding and design, and Isabel Isidro and Todd Thurman (formerly on my team) for building the taxonomy and managing the content. Many people at Heritage played important roles in the process, but no one deserves more praise than my colleague Tim McGovern. As our online communications director, he was at the wheel throughout the entire project — during its ups and downs — and managed to deliver a superior website that will serve Heritage for years to come. Tim and I saw each other at our best and worst. It was a tremendous learning experience for both of us.

I encourage you to share your feedback about the website — positive or negative. The Morning Bell highlighted a few of the major improvements, which I’d like to share:

1. Simplified navigation that allows users to quickly access the content they are seeking. We now have tabs for both Issues and Research in the navigation, giving you the option to browse by public policy issues or, for the more familiar Heritage.org user, by the type of content.
2. The visual design showcases the strength, credibility and stature of The Heritage Foundation, our people and our work, while also encouraging users to explore our site. This is reflected in the multi-tonal Heritage blue color palette, uniform bands of content throughout the site and the introduction of visual icons that work in tandem with the new navigation.
3. An improved search function and new way of organizing our research should make finding content faster and easier. We’ve taken these two major steps to in response to feedback from our users. The new search engine is more robust and allows visitors to filter content by issue, paper type, author and more. In addition, we’ve introduced a comprehensive structure for organizing all of this information, allowing us to expand the number of issue areas from about 100 on the old website to nearly 1,000 and growing.
4. Our multimedia section features Heritage videos, info graphics and audio in one place. Whether you’re looking for one of our original productions such as “Let Me Rise” or a recent TV appearance of a Heritage analyst, you can now find it easily by clicking on the links above the search on each page.
5. We’ve introduced customized audience pages for the conservative community, government staff, press and media, job seekers and young leaders. By tailoring our content to these groups, we hope to better serve their needs. You can access these pages in the footer of every page.
6. The new footer gives Heritage an opportunity to showcase some of our signature research papers and communications products on the bottom of every page. Given the large amount of traffic Heritage.org received from search engines, we realize that not everyone entering the site is coming through the homepage.

The great thing about working at The Heritage Foundation is the desire to remain on the cutting edge. It’s a reason we made big changes to The Foundry earlier this year and why we will continue to improve Heritage.org in the days, weeks and months to come.