This document discusses the consolidation of 16 Dutch government websites into a single centralized website at www.rijksoverheid.nl. The goals of the project were to reduce costs and staffing needs by moving to a shared content management system, while also improving usability, accessibility and reducing public confusion over multiple websites. Key challenges included migrating content from 9 different CMS platforms, organizing information by type for the migration, and dealing with the project taking longer and being more difficult than initially expected.

1. www.rijksoverheid.nl
Overheidscommunicatie Nieuwe Stijl
„Central Government Communication New Style‟

2. Political wish & decision
“less people in central government”
+ Web „problem‟
16 websites for central government

3. Idea: „shared service‟
Smaller, flexible, better quality …
… less people, less confusion

4. 16 websites from 13
departments into 1:
www.rijksoverheid.nl
something like
www.‟centralgovernment‟.nl :-)

5. Websites 16
CMS 9
Search 5
Hosting 16
Editorial staff 16
+
Less costs, less people,
better quality

6. Business needs
…are user needs!
Government websites must
be available to everyone…
2-12-2009

7. User needs!
Reduced complexity…
UCD & usability-testing
Webguidelines/WCAG
Accessibility and
build quality
Open data/content
Social media/webX.0
Information in one place
Less confusion

8. Content-migration
16 websites
9 CMS‟ses…

9. Ordering content &
ordering backend:
Know your
information types

10. Information types
Migration by
Editorial content
hand
Formal
documents: Automatic
reports, letters, migration
publications…
Binaries: Automatic
PDF, JPG, ODF migration

11. Spider 16 front-ends into XML
Feeds Integration layer Other
Video external
Audio content
CMS
repository
database

12. Observations
- It takes longer than you think
- It is harder than you think
- Expect „stuff‟ to happen…
- So scope your project
- Know your information
- Mix automatic and by hand solutions

13. Thank you!
g.berkouwer@minaz.nl
twitter.com/Geebee
Photo credits: Crayon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rednut/ Binnenhof: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roberts87/
India bus: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cumbers/ Crowd: http://www.flickr.com/photos/redjar/ User: David Vignoni
Migration2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pnoid00/ Order: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crowtongue/
Confusion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/circulating/ Hippo: Hippo Kapow: Kapow