Website Versioningby Stephanie Lummis

The recent launch of OneWeb CMS 6 got me thinking about the whole versioning process. It’s pretty standard in software – you do minor and major releases on a regular cycle. As soon as one version is pushed out to the public, the development team is thinking about the next and likely already has a list of new features for consideration.

The Fresh-Stale Life Cycle

Many organizations launch their new site and consider the project closed. Sure they make content edits and keep up to date but their sites don’t actually evolve – they don’t change to better meet the needs of their target audience. As a result, organisations go through a cycle of making large investments in a redesign every 3-6 years, and get stuck in a loop of fresh > stale > fresh > stale.

And when I say stale I mean like the house on your street that you complain about to your spouse every time you drive by because it’s bringing down property values.  This cycle happens for 2 reasons:

1. Organizations think of their websites as liabilities and not assets
2. User expectations and web technology change much faster than every 3-6 years.

The organisation that assumes its users’ needs remain constant is depreciating the value of their asset (picture that house down the block again). Your website never realizes its full potential and negatively impacts the rest of your business.

Why don’t we apply the software versioning concept to websites? What would this look like? After launch start planning the next iteration. Take the cost of your redesign and dividing it by 4 or 5 and designate this as your annual website upgrade budget (note upgrade, not maintenance).

Gather the feedback, suggestions, features and functions that didn’t make it into launch as a starting point. Most importantly, listen to your users and do some research so you can make informed decisions about what goes into the next version: 

• Look at your website analytics regularly
• Do surveys
• Do some usability testing
• Get a professional to do a content or usability audit

Whether you call it 2.0 and set it for about 8-12 months out, or just do a minor point version, is going to depend on your organization. The goal is to have a plan and a process.

This approach gives you resources and budget to evaluate tech trends or changes in your market and be both selective and proactive about incorporating new features into your website rather than falling behind.

Increase the Value of your Assets

Should your organization decide to adopt a versioning approach, you will increase visitor loyalty and satisfaction, and save money over the long term. Most importantly your website will be an appreciable asset that grows your business.

Related article: Website Governance