By now most of you know that AMSN is working on a new AMSN website. I’ve talked in a couple of my columns about AMSN’s new website and AMSN President Robin Hertel told attendees about it at our convention in September.

Well, it’s been a labor of love and we’re finally getting to the finish line with our development and content, so I thought I’d tell you about our new website and what you can expect when it goes live early this spring!

AMSN’s new website is completely redesigned with you in mind. When the Board of Directors approved this project, they were clear they wanted a fresh, attractive, user-friendly interface that was mobile-friendly and easily navigated. We decided the best way to do that was to involve our members in the process. We contracted with web designers that specialized in user experience and cutting-edge technology.

Our user experience consultant conducted focus groups, surveys, tree-test task exercises and usability testing. What does that mean? It means the website was designed based on your input and feedback, so it will contain the information you need/want and is structured in a way that makes sense to you.

Next, we did a complete content analysis of our current website. Our current website contains so much rich information but some of the content needs to be refreshed. Some of it is buried within a large amount of content, which makes it very difficult to find.

Our content specialist went through every single page of the website and identified the content that would be important to keep and update – and determined the content that could be retired. Our content strategy also identified how we would present content and how we would share external content.

The content on the new website will be relevant, important, insightful and will contain the necessary context for your practice. We’re still working on the content migration, but we’re thrilled with how it’s coming along.

We are also interested in sharing member stories on the new site. In our “Membership” section, we’ll have places to announce a job move or promotion (Members on the Move), and to share your personal stories about nursing life (In Your Own Words). Until those sections are ready, please drop us a line with your update or story to membership@amsn.org!

Lastly, our architecture team worked on the structure, design, and format of the website. This has been a labor of love, for sure!

We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to build some critical integrations to improve your experience. If you are a member or customer of AMSN and you’re logged into your AMSN account, you will see content that is relevant to you, your role, and your interests.

So, if you haven’t updated your account profile recently, please head over to the Membership section and make sure we have the most current information about you. We also are excited about our search functionality on the new website.

It’s a proprietary search functionality that spans all the properties for AMSN, whether it be on the website, the online community, the online library, podcasts or blogs and consolidates the search results from all these properties right in the website. It’s ground-breaking and brings all the content and resources AMSN has – right to your fingertips.

We appreciate your patience as we finalize the new website. It’s been over a year-long project and the staff have worked diligently to bring this new website to fruition.

It has taken longer than expected but we know that it will be worth it. Stay tuned, it won’t be much longer now…and soon we’ll all be enjoying a fabulous web experience!