[ICPSR] Announcing the ICPSR Open Beta

[Matthew Richardson]

Every 2-3 years, ICPSR takes a moment to re-evaluate how we can best serve
the ICPSR membership, and we redesign our Web site accordingly. In early
September, we will launch our latest redesign, and we'd like to give you the
opportunity to test our new site prototype, and give us additional feedback
on potential improvements.

The new site can be found here:

http://staging.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsralpha/

and we'll be doing beta testing during the month of July. In August, we'll
make changes based upon your feedback and do the last-minute polishing
necessary before site launch.

For this resdesign, our goals were pretty straight-forward:

* Improve navigation so that users are presented with a smaller set of
options tailored to their specific tasks.
* Make it easier for users to determine how a study matches their search
terms.
* Improve searching overall and direct users to more productive search
techniques.
* Tailor the search experience so that it aligns better with other popular
searches, so that users can leverage their search experience.
* Improve search engine optimization so that data users unfamiliar with
ICPSR are more likely to find us.
* Make variable results more accessible by adding a variable comparison
utility and the ability to view variables within their context.

More detail on the redesign changes can be found here:

http://staging.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsralpha/content/ICPSR/redesign.html

Please note that the content of some sections (such as Data Management) is
still being revised.

As always, we welcome your feedback. If you have comments or suggestions,
please send them to web-support at icpsr.umich.edu. Your help in testing the
new site is greatly appreciated.

-Matthew Richardson, ICPSR