Overdue for an Overhaul: The Redesign of the Durham County Public Library's Web Site

by Balke, Kaye M

A website can provide a powerful way for an organization to communicate with the public. Although organizations often place a large degree of effort in website creation, they typically neglect to consider ongoing maintenance, which is critical in an environment where content, technology, and people evolve. In this paper we conduct a redesign of the Durham County Public Library site. As with many organizations, the Library is short-staffed and their website suffers from outdated content, inconsistent design and poor navigation. Using the Library as a case study, we critique the original website, then propose a new design. Our subsequent implementation and evaluation showed the new design conforms to W3C priority one accessibility guidelines, is ten times smaller, downloads ten times faster, and is easier to update. This case study lends further evidence as to the importance of a good web site design for ongoing maintenance.