American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) Web portal project

AAMVA, one of the largest associations in the country, underwent a Web site redesign, content management implementation, and intranet implementation in 2006. Both the new Web site and intranet integrate with AAMVA's association management system and learning management system.

In this project, Olkin Communications Consulting provided audience analysis, information architecture, usability testing, content management consulting, and expert design management.

Read the Association Publishing magazine article about this project (PDF 818 KB).

The Challenge

The former AAMVA Web site had some shortcomings that needed to be addressed in the redesign:

• The site was difficult to navigate. There were too many main navigation categories, split between top and lefthand navigation. Flyout menus crowded the navigation area, obscuring some main navigation links.
• The naming of content categories did not help guide users to the content tailored to their needs and interests.
• The design was busy and distracting, with too many internal ads, a persistent background graphic, and jarring colors.
• Content was written from an "insider" perspective that was too technical for many of the site's users.
• The color palette did not project a professional image.

Outcomes

The new AAMVA Web site design boasts—

• a clean, usable design
• a consistent, intuitive navigation scheme
• a topic-based, user-focused taxonomy
• cross linking and drill-down links to take users to the most important content quickly
• audience-based views of content

Our analysis of communication goals and audiences in the AAMVA Web redesign project spurred a broader examination of communications practices throughout AAMVA. The organization subsequently formed a branding committee to ensure consistency of branding and messaging across all communications and marketing efforts.

Continuation of Intranet Development

Olkin Communications Consulting was reengaged in 2008 to assist AAMVA in further developing its intranet and document repository. Our team will work with AAMVA staff to establish an information architecture and taxonomy, and search schema for document and content retrieval.