From January–May 2007, IT Services is inviting its own staff members and a select group of interested clients to test a revised front-end of the department’s web site. The test site is located at itstest.stanford.edu.

The new layout emphasizes links to help resources, an online service catalog, and quick access to order-links. A database back-end powers an option to login via WebAuth for a service-catalog view that we have tailored to your affiliation (e.g., staff, faculty, student, Department IT Contact, LNA). Details about the new features and recommendations for testing them and submitting feedback are described below.

Note: The new features being introduced here do not affect the layout or content of IT Services’ individual service or project web sites. The pilot web site consists of a new department home page and catalog-browsing pages; if you follow a link from one of the test pages to a “live” service, project, or organization page, you will need to use your browser’s “back” button to return to the test site.

Anatomy of the Pilot Home Page

Guidelines for Testing

If you are participating in the pilot test, please follow these simple guidelines:

1. When you are looking for IT Services information or assistance, or need to request or order a service, point your browser to the pilot home page at itstest.stanford.edu and use the menus, links, and “online catalog views” to navigate to your destination. We appreciate that this involves extra steps if you are accustomed to going directly to sites like itservices.stanford.edu (orderit.stanford.edu), computing.stanford.edu, and ithelp.stanford.edu to get your work done. However, the time you spend testing and evaluating the new features we're introducing here will help to ensure that IT Services’ new department home page will function as the most effective central “hub” for “all things IT Services.”
2. As mentioned in the note above, the features we are asking you to test here do not affect the layout or content of IT Services’ individual service or project web sites. The pilot web site consists of a new department home page and catalog-browsing pages; if you follow a link from one of the test pages to a “live” service, project, or organization page, you will need to use your browser’s “back” button to return to the test site.
3. Whenever you have a comment or observation about the pilot site, please share it with us using the provided feedback form (there’s a “feedback form” link in the upper right area of every one of the pilot pages). Your input is appreciated and we’ll respond within 48 hours. Following are some examples of items we expect to generate feedback:
   • the page answered or did not answer your question;
   • a service appears to be missing from the list;
   • the “highlighted” services are — or are not — of interest to you;
   • the dynamically-generated catalog pages are slow — or fast — to load.