For websites and web services across EMBL, a set of foundational improvements is enabling more rapid, flexible and effective user journeys. For many, those changes are most evident in the new EMBL.org, but that\u2019s only a partial showcase of what\u2019s now possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While many have seen some of these new tools, very few know about all of them, what they can facilitate or, perhaps most importantly, why we made them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those who don\u2019t know me, I\u2019m Ken Hawkins and Web Front End Lead for EMBL \u2014 which means I\u2019ve been involved in a broad range of web activities across the organisation, from corporate content to training to internal services to collaborations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With that background, I\u2019d like to talk a bit about our four-year journey of why <\/em>we made these new tools \u2014 and what<\/em> you can now do on EMBL.org and all EMBL websites and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make nearly any website, you need four basic types of things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in 2017, a group of us from across EMBL (EMBL-EBI Web Development, EMBL-EBI External Relations, EMBL Communication and EMBL IT) knew a change in technology was coming:<\/p>\n\n\n\n But more importantly, we knew the technical and content tooling wasn\u2019t up to the job of what EMBL Communications and EMBL-EBI\u2019s External Relations wanted \u2014 nor were they up to the job of facilitating the range of activities that EMBL does online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly, the new technical tooling would also need to allow EMBL-EBI to more closely integrate with technical tooling at EMBL Heidelberg, as well as encourage greater \u201cOne EMBL\u201d alignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between content, design and functional abilities, we would not succeed by simply updating to a new website CMS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cwe\u201d involved is a broad range of technical, design, user experience and content professionals from across EMBL that had an understanding of corporate and online resource needs from across the organisation. Likewise, these groups also had the remit of ensuring the organisation\u2019s web tooling would be able to provide the needed functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We knew what EMBL was asking for, next we needed to find out to facilitate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a series of collaborations and prototypes, we settled on an answer that split responsibilities across four areas (not teams):<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this approach, we are able to separate concerns and allow each part of the organisation to specialise (or override) as required \u2014 making it a solution flexible enough for EMBL.org, EBI.ac.uk and the many services and collaborations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, these groups started regular meetings to understand the scope of the challenge and how we could best provide a platform that would survive any singular change in technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s how that was done from the server up to the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the following two years, these new systems and tools were built out. A new EMBL.org launched in early 2020, and during the following 18 months, the systems continued to mature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While there is still a long list of features to build and bugs to solve, the new tooling provides a broad range of new features:<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a personal note, my EMBL contract ends this December. While I\u2019ll no longer be part of driving these projects forward, I\u2019ll still take pride in having been part of the process and watching it continue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s best about these solutions is what\u2019s between them: flexibility for all EMBL sites, services and collaborations \u2014 without having to give up cohesiveness with One EMBL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For websites and web services across EMBL, a set of foundational improvements is enabling more rapid, flexible and effective user journeys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-7746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.svg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7746"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20132,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7746\/revisions\/20132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7746"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=7746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chapter 1: Why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chapter 2: What<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chapter 3: How<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Organisational information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Web hosting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Web content <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Web visuals and behaviour<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Chapter 4: Now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chapter 5: Passing the torch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n