NIH's Center for Information Technology's Website Gets Award

CIT Receives Web Business Honors

By Gregory Roa

NIH's Center for Information Technology recently won the CIO Web Business 50/50 award for online business excellence. The honor from CIO magazine recognizes 50 Internet and 50 intranet/extranet sites that deliver outstanding business value. CIT's Web site was the only civilian federal government site to be named as one of the top 50 on the Internet.

Winners are selected from hundreds of nominees by a panel of Web developers, art designers, editors and writers with CIO magazine. The judges look for sites that successfully integrate creative design and high quality technical attributes in ways that contribute to an organization's overall objective and meet the needs of its target audience.

Not Just a Pretty Face

In building CIT's site, Webmaster Charles Mokotoff sought "to get away from organizational aspects and develop something more functional" to help visitors find information quickly and easily. The home page had to be "dense" but easily navigable.

Two things helped achieve that goal. From the start, a team of planners considered, above all, the needs of CIT's users — primarily NIH staff seeking answers to questions on everything from computer training, security, email solutions and telecommunications, to complex scientific computing.

Second, Mokotoff and designer Richard Barnes combined an eye-pleasing palette of cool colors with innovative techniques: alternating feature graphics, a sidebar of "popular links" mined from CIT's Help Desk Knowledgebase, plus "factoids," frequently updated technology tips submitted by users. These interactive elements work by "bringing information buried in the site up to the front," says Barnes. The package promotes a fresh appearance that channels viewers swiftly to their destination.

Taking Care of Business

Mokotoff and Barnes are pleased the Web site garnered an accolade for online business — it means CIT stands out in an industry still learning how to utilize the Internet's full potential to provide quality service. Delivering Web-based resources to its customers — NIH researchers and administrators — is just one way that CIT is striving for excellence as a partner in the NIH business of biomedical discovery.

CIT and the other winners "exemplify leadership and innovation in an ever-changing interactive environment," according to CIO magazine, which is published by International Data Group, a leading provider of information technology media and research. Visit the award-winning site at http://cit.nih.gov, or find complete coverage of the 1999 CIO Web Business 50/50 Awards at http://www.cio.com.

This story appeared in the Aug. 24, 1999 issue of The NIH Record, an employee newsletter.