Canadian Heritage Information Network

RealDecoy has been engaged with CHIN for many years, turning what was originally considered a basic redesign project into a major overhaul of its web properties.

THE CHALLENGE

Dated sites

CHIN’s two websites—chin.gc.ca and virtualmuseum.ca—were outdated and weren’t serving visitors’ needs. When CHIN posted a Request for Proposal for a redesign of these web properties, RealDecoy answered the call. We won the project based on our industry experience and previous work with other government clients.

Playing to two audiences

RealDecoy discovered that the chin.ca website received two very distinct groups of visitors: the general public and heritage professionals. The site had originally been architected to serve both groups at the same time, which resulted in a massive overload of information for visitors. RealDecoy was challenged to come up with a way to serve these two distinct groups without bombarding either with information.

Limited navigation

The Virtual Museum of Canada site was rich in content but offered visitors no real way to navigate through that content. The site needed to be redesigned to display information in a way that allowed visitors to quickly and easily access exactly what they were looking for.

OUR SOLUTION

Two audiences, two sites

Through the investigation phase of the project, RealDecoy determined that CHIN should split its chin.gc.ca site into two separate sites, one for each audience. Visitors would then be able to access the content that was most relevant to them.

We worked with CHIN to plan and develop both a corporate site and a professional exchange site from the chin.gc.ca site content. We developed these two sites in parallel with the Virtual Museum of Canada website.

An enterprise faceted search solution

As part of the re-architecting process, RealDecoy recommended an enterprise search that would include faceted navigation for all of CHIN sites (rcip-chin.gc.ca, pro.rcip-chin.gc.ca, museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca). CHIN tendered a bid for a software solution and selected Endeca after a lengthy competitive process.

The CHIN corporate site reborn

RealDecoy redeveloped the CHIN corporate site targeting users looking for information about CHIN and its programs. Content on the new site was streamlined allowing visitors to access to information they were looking for while adhering to a strict navigation system. RealDecoy provided rich content in a unique design, integrated the faceted search solution from Endeca and adhered to the Government of Canada’s Common Look and Feel standards. 

The Virtual Museum of Canada redesigned

While splitting the chin.gc.ca site, RealDecoy worked in parallel on redesigning the Virtual Museum of Canada site to provide CHIN with a more engaging and easier to use site. We added a great deal of new functionality to the site such as social media components that allows visitors to comment on virtual exhibits. A new feature called MyVMC gives visitors the chance to select their favourite exhibits, image collections and museums, and share their MyVMC with friends or the general public.

RealDecoy also developed a dynamically driven Flash banner to provide an effective and engaging method of displaying a vast amount of content for virtualmuseum.ca. We also integrated Google Maps to allow users to quickly locate museums on the site.

The new Professional Exchange

RealDecoy built a completely new site: the Professional Exchange—a site designed to provide digital resources to heritage professionals working in museums. The professional exchange takes advantage of Endeca’s guided navigation to allow heritage professionals to quickly find content from multiple sources. The site incorporates various social media features including commenting, rating and sharing.

Timeline:

September 2007 to July 2009

During RealDecoy’s initial engagement with CHIN, the organization determined that they needed a Central Authentication System (CAS) with Access Control Management (ACM) built in.

THE CHALLENGE

CHIN needed a way to provide single sign on access to visitors allowing them to browse through the new three new sites, make comments and build their MyVMC without having to re-login.

Several levels of users, ranging from the general public to CHIN super administrators, would be accessing the three sites. CHIN needed a mechanism to manage these users, their sessions and moderate comments.

OUR SOLUTION

Working with CHIN’s Information Management/Information Technology (IMIT) team, RealDecoy planned for and developed a CAS and an ACM system that will ultimately manage access to all three sites. This system will allow users to log in using a single sign-on for all CHIN web properties. It will also determine what access rights the visitor would have and provide the relevant information for that visitor. To date, RealDecoy has built two member levels and is continuing to add levels for CHIN member administrators and other members.

RealDecoy is continuing development of the CAS and ACM system to provide CHIN members with a dashboard of relevant tools based their credentials.

Timeline:

September 2007 to July 2009