Web

The IOC manages MIT's central websites and directs our own website work, including sites for senior leadership and high-level initiatives.

For DLC websites, we can support you in several aspects of the website creation process.

Quick links

Contact

ioc@mit.edu

What we do

Discovery and content strategy

Assess your project needs
Review how your site aligns with your other communications
Provide advice on content strategy
Suggest creative vendors, including designers, developers, copywriters, photographers, and videographers
Help draft requests for proposals (RFPs)
Review bids

Design and development

Advise on information architecture and user testing
Provide guidance on MIT branding
Offer design and content feedback
Connect you with accessibility and usability resources

Web resources

Creating a website involves many detailed steps, so thoughtful planning up front will help your project go smoothly. Contact us if you have any questions about the recommended process and best practices outlined below.

Define your audience and key messages.
Consider how your website should coordinate with your department’s branding, print communications, and social media.
Review peer sites, and other sites in general, to gather design and functionality ideas.
Create a schedule by working back from your target launch date. Smaller sites can take three to four months, while larger, more complex ones can take much longer. Build in time for content creation, design, development, design and code reviews, and pre-launch testing—in addition to review and approval by key stakeholders. Once you have a vendor team in place, they can help with filling in the dates.
Think about your content strategy: Who on your team will be responsible for updating the content, and how often? For example, if you plan to have a prominent feature area on your homepage, that content will need to be updated regularly. Content is the component that often delays a site launch, so get started early.
See the options for making a website at MIT.
Plan for hosting and support. Consider IS&T-managed server hosting; your web vendor may also offer hosting.

Conduct user testing of your current site with representative target audience members. This will help you identify any points of confusion with your site’s information architecture or navigation names.
Review the analytics on your current site. You may discover pages that no one is visiting or a popular subsection that might be better placed in the main navigation.
Determine if your site requires special functionality, such as interaction with a database, account creation, and login, or anything else that might require custom programming.
Use information from the discovery process to create a new sitemap (the proposed structure of your site) and a content matrix (an inventory of your existing and new content needs). You can include these tasks in your request for proposals (RFP).

Prepare a request for proposals (RFP) that outlines your project scope, goals and objectives, audience, project team, desired features (e.g., blog, events calendar, MIT-only restricted area, application form, etc.), and training and documentation needs. All sites need to be designed for desktop, tablet, and mobile views.
Send your RFP to at least three creative partners of each service type (e.g., design, development, copywriting) to satisfy MIT Strategic Sourcing requirements; some firms may offer multiple services. Give them up to two weeks to provide proposals.
Compare the proposals and invite the top contenders to meet your group and present their work prior to awarding the job.
Once you’ve awarded the project, schedule a kickoff meeting with the creative team and key members of your department. The purpose of the kickoff is to review the project scope, team roles, and schedule.

Determine which members of your team should attend the design presentations. There are typically three rounds in the design phase. In the first round, the designer presents two or three different design directions, showing a homepage and sample lower-level pages. The goal for this meeting is to choose elements from one or two of the design options. The second design meeting incorporates feedback from the first round and usually includes additional page views. The third round is to confirm all changes and design elements.
Schedule time with Disability and Access Services so they can review your site for design compliance. Your designer should make any corrections without additional charges before providing the design files to the developer.

Meet with your developer to review how each feature of your website will function.
Ensure that your site is responsive for desktop, tablet, and mobile views.
If you are creating a custom Drupal or WordPress site, your developer should follow IS&T’s coding best practices for Drupal or WordPress.
Once your developer has built the site, start testing it to verify that every design element and site feature has been implemented and is working properly.
Contact Disability and Access Services to perform a code review. Your developer should make any corrections without additional charges before launch.

Accessibility and usability reviews
Disability and Access Services employs a combination of web standards, federal accessibility guidelines, and user testing to assess the accessibility of MIT websites, applications, and courseware. Their services are free to the MIT community.

LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is an online education service offering thousands of video courses and tutorials taught by industry experts. The portal covers a wide range of topics, including website design and creation. An MIT certificate is required.

MIT branding on your website
Find information about adhering to MIT brand standards on your website.

Options for websites at MIT
Discover the various platforms and applications available for creating websites at the Institute.

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Web

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Quick links

Contact

What we do

Discovery and content strategy

Design and development

Web resources

Getting started

Discovery

Creative partners

Content

Design review

Development

Quality assurance

Launch

Other resources