PUTTING OUR DUCKS IN A ROW
Whether we are sitting in a room together or chatting through headsets and speakerphones, the first thing we need to establish is the scope of the work. Some people come to us with a fairly solid plan. The architecture of the site has been mapped out and some portion of the text has been written and vetted. Frankly, that is rare. In most cases, folks provide an idea of what they want their sites to achieve and who they want to reach, but have done little, if any, planning beyond that. Here are some of the things we will talk about in our early conversations:
- Navigation. We need to create a primary structure that accommodates additional layers of navigation. First, through conversation and informal interviewing, we establish clear goals. Then, we brainstorm the primary navigation structure through which these goals can be met. The specific design of additional layers of navigation can be discussed at a later time, as long as we know how many levels will be required.
- Homepage. Homepages vary tremendously. There are many variables to consider. We need to establish your goals and then figure out how best to meet them.
- Visuals. We need to assess what resources are available to us. What do we already have access to? Where can we go for other resources? Do we need to establish a budget for purchasing photography, illustration, and/or designing and building information graphics?
- Forms. Whether they be simple email forms or forms that collect complex data, it is good to identify these early on with both scheduling and budgeting in mind.
- Data-driven Pages. If there are any pages that require data-driven search functions specific to your work, we need to know this early as well. If information already resides in a database, we will need to review the existing files to figure out what it will take to work with them. If data is being aggregated for the first time, we need to program structures that will meet your needs.
- Media Galleries. More and more, clients request photo, video, and audio galleries to help tell their stories and promote their missions. There are many approaches to these as well with varying costs attached to different technologies. Based on your budget and your interests, we help you choose what will work best for you.
- Blogs, Calendars and Other Interactive Media. We can add blogs, discussion boards, calendars, RSS feeds, and portals to workspaces (such as Google Docs) to your website, using either open-source software or our own custom-built plugins. These add-ons can be set up as simple extensions of your site with their own look (using design elements from your website to establish branding), or fully integrated into the website, depending on your needs and budget.
- On-line Purchasing. If you sell a product or receive donations through your site, there are various ways to proceed. We need to figure this out early in the process. There is more information on this later in this document.
- Eblasts and Online Newsletters. We have created our own eblast and online newsletter systems that integrate seamlessly into your website. Our newsletter software automatically archives older issues and creates the menus on your site in real time for easy access, and are fully searchable through the site-wide keyword search feature. Eblasts can be created directly from online newsletters, or they can be stand-alone documents ready for sending through any of several email marketing services with which we work.
