Today, the ICANN org launched improvements to the existing Acronyms and Terms feature on https://icann.org. These changes are a part of ITI's commitment to increase the findability of our public content. Some of the enhancements include:
- Multilingual search via acronym, term, or Unicode character.
- Over 200 additional acronyms, definitions, and terms.
- Social and email sharing functionality.
- Links to related terms and relevant web content.
This upgraded Acronyms and Terms feature provides a multilingual experience in all six U.N. languages. Our hope is that the improved content and search will help you, particularly newcomers, learn more about ICANN and facilitate your work within the ICANN community. We invite you to explore the feature and let us know what you think. To help guide your input, consider the following:
- Do you notice improved searchability of ICANN acronyms or terms in your preferred language?
- Is it easy to share the page?
- Do you find additional information like Origin, Also Known As, Related Terms, and Web Links useful?
Email the ITI team with your comments to: acronymsandterms@icann.org.
It is important to note that while we have increased the number of acronyms and terms to over 250, we are adding over 100 more acronyms and terms in the coming weeks. If you don't see an acronym and term available, it may be coming soon. If you feel an acronym or term should be added, please email: acronymsandterms@icann.org.
Improving ICANN's Content and Technical Infrastructure
As I mentioned above, one of the primary goals of ITI is improving the findability of our content in all six U.N. languages. This means we are not concentrating on cosmetic changes, rather, much of the ITI team's effort is focused on building and implementing new foundations – a first-ever for ICANN document management system (DMS), a new content management system (CMS), and content governance.
One of the enhancements you won't directly see in the new Acronyms and Terms feature is this foundational work. All the acronyms, terms, definitions, and other content in this feature are now stored in the new DMS. This content is then displayed on https://icann.org via the new CMS. While the Acronyms and Terms feature is minor part of the ITI project, the foundational work to implement these changes served a larger purpose. It allowed the ITI team to test the integration between the DMS and CMS with a real use case and provided the first steps in building a content model to ensure content can be easily stored in the DMS and presented publicly on https://icann.org through the CMS. We're also able to show you, the community, a preview of how this foundational work serves the goal of improved content findability in all six U.N. languages.
Community Input
While much of ITI's work is foundational, there are key features that we will need your feedback on. We'll also need to perform usability testing with your help. Usability testing involves an ICANN stakeholder and https://icann.org user trying out a new feature. During usability testing, the user experiments with the feature while the ITI team gathers information on the user's challenges with the new feature, their satisfaction with the enhancements, and any other feedback the user wishes to provide. This testing will help the ITI team make improvements based upon real user data. For example, Public Comment is an important feature to gather feedback and perform usability testing on with ICANN stakeholders.
We will reach out to you to solicit parties interested in participating in upcoming usability testing. More on this in the coming months.
For more information about ITI, visit feedback.icann.org. On this site, you'll find links to previous ITI blogs, background documentation, and more. If you're interested in learning more about ITI or have a suggestion or feedback, email us at: informationtransparency@icann.org.
