Nigel Heseltine, editor

Case Study

Warming Up Canada

Project Objective

In 2009, Virtual Museums of Canada (VMC), part of the federal government’s Department of Heritage, supported HVACR Heritage Centre Canada (HHCC) in its bid to build a virtual museum to showcase artifacts that told stories about the evolution of Canada’s heating industry.

Deliverables

HHCC needed to build a standalone website; upload content to the VMC website, and produce teachers’ kits. All the content had to be available in English and French, and the main site had to meet web design (XHTML 1.0 Strict) and accessibility standards (WASC 2.0).

HHCC also wanted the website to have a content management system (CMS), so members of the industry could add articles and archival material in the future.

The Work

I got involved with the project in the summer of 2009. Reporting to the general manager, my job was to bring website content management expertise and research/writing/editing skills to the project.

Although I had built websites before, the contract for this project stipulated that we hire a web development firm to build the website, so that was not one of my initial roles. I knew HHCC was a small organization that didn’t have the resources to spend on website building, so I opposed this requirement. I knew I could build the site, and if I did we would have more resources to use for developing content and market the site when it was finished. Nevertheless, my protests were unsuccessful, and we had to hire someone.

Finding a web developer

My first task was to write a request for a proposal (RFP) to send to web development firms. After scouring a list of companies in the Greater Toronto Area and visiting their websites, I sent the RFP to about 25 of them. About a dozen came back with quotes for the work. The most expensive firms were immediately out of the running as they would have consumed all the project budget. Ultimately, we talked to several companies on the phone and made in-person visits to two of them. Finally, we chose one that could meet the project expectations and had experience with a widely-used open source CMS application called Joomla.

The search for a developer was scary. Our success was entirely dependent upon our choice, and we discovered that comparing one web development firm to another was very much like comparing apples to oranges.

During the first months of the project, I worked closely with the developer on the design and testing of the website. I learned Joomla and I did a lot of research into heating history for the purpose of writing/editing articles and obtaining images. I also set up a WordPress website to hold and categorize research collected by myself and others.

After the first government review, I collaborated with the developer as we addressed the government’s concerns. Once we were cleared to continue, the developer’s role was finished. However, more work was needed on the site to meet concerns raised in the second government review, and we needed to make some changes to the site architecture, so I had to take on the developer role.

Meeting expectations

HHCC did not have money to put into the project if we exceeded the amount of the government award, so we could not afford mistakes. Too many times we found ourselves balanced on a knife-edge, usually because of some technical demand we had no idea we would have to meet.

One such demand related to levels of contrast between text and background colours. Neither the developers nor we had any inkling that this was a requirement, and that, unmet, it would sink the project there and then. The guideline was not new, but implementing it was, and the developers did not feel it was their responsibility. The solution? I gave a weekend of my free time to researching the issue and found a way to achieve the fixes. I passed my findings to the web developer who implemented the changes. Situations like this occurred several more times over the course of the project.

I am pleased we met expectations, but I often felt as though we were being used as guinea pigs. VMC’s website did not meet the expectations they were asking from us, nor did numerous existing virtual museum websites. VMC’s website was XHTML 4.01 transitional. Had we built to that standard, Joomla would have updated the site regularly, gradually moving our site to HTML 5.0. Being asked to build in XHTML 1.0 Strict when HTML 5.0 was on the horizon proved to be a mistake. When launched, the site was already on its way to obsolescence.

We uploaded content on two other sites. One was a Learning Objects Collection, which explored the characteristics of six of the HHCC artifacts and provides suggestions for teachers as to how these artifacts may be studied in the classroom. On the other site, we uploaded two Lesson Plans for teachers to use. Like the main site, both were available in English and French.

Creating content

We were victims of our success in developing the content of the site. The site had over 100,000 words of content, French and English. (That didn’t include the learning objects site or the lesson plans!) The site also featured several hundred pictures, some videos, and some audio tracks.

Although a lot of research had been done, we produced very little content until we got through the second review. We couldn’t afford to commit resources until we knew the government would pay us. Over the next several months, work focussed on obtaining images and articles; interviewing, writing, and editing; and uploading to the website.

Once we had what I thought was a finished English version of the website, we submitted it for a third review. This review was as difficult as the first one, much to my surprise. When it was finished, we started the translation.

Translating content

We found an excellent translator through an HVAC company in Montreal. He produced French translations of all the articles. I translated most of the short items, as well as the captions, bibliographies, and photo credits. He checked them over to make sure they made sense. This phase of the project went very well, though it took a long time. The articles had to match, so the English ones needed to be completely finished before translation began.

Features

Not only is this site available in two languages, it is also available to people who are vision impaired, colourblind, or otherwise unable to access the website through conventional means.
The Joomla CMS gave HHCC members the opportunity to add content to the site without knowing much about its inner workings.
The site’s templates could have been reused to create sites dealing with other subjects, such as ventilation or air conditioning, greatly reducing the cost HHCC would have to expand its web presence.

Lessons Learned

Good communication is important

When the project started, the government would only speak with the general manager, my boss. If the developers or I had a question, we had to pass it on to our boss, and he had to understand it well enough to pass it on to his government contact who in turn had to understand it well enough to pass it on to technical people. There were three problems with this process: First, the question had to be properly interpreted through these layers. Second, there was no opportunity for follow-up or relationship building. Third, the process quickly tried everybody’s patience. After about a year-and-a-half I was finally able to start communicating directly with VMC and from that point on communication improved.

Site technology deemed more important than site content

The government expected the technical aspects of the project to be done exactly to specifications set out in the contract. HHCC was a small group of mostly retired HVACR business people, so this was a big ask — website building, upgrading, and maintaining were not HHCC’s areas of expertise. Part of the reason I was brought in was to close that gap. Not only did I know the HVACR industry, but I also had the technical expertise necessary to build websites.

While I was okay with the government stressing compliance with technical standards, what was problematic for me was its reluctance to help me understand some nuances of these standards. Mistakes were made and money was wasted because we had to proceed with work to meet deadlines without knowing what would be an acceptable outcome.

Conclusion

The site launched in the first quarter of 2013.
I created a portable version of the site on DVD that was used to promote HHCC at conferences and shows.
I was contracted to provide maintenance on this site and the HHCC’s main website, a service I provided for the next five years.

Personal Development

Carried out in-depth research into several topics
Edited articles, images, and videos and formatted them for the web
Worked closely with the French translator and translated numerous small pieces of the text myself.
Fixed bugs with the website
Became very comfortable with the Joomla content management system, and with PHP, MySQL, CSS, and WASC 2.0.
Met all government requirements for the project.