RE: Discussions about the structure and function of the SLWCS Website [wrd]

Chandeep,

 

I would like to point you to this reference:

 

http://www.websites.ac/websites/frameset.html?design_prin.html

 

This is why I keep pressing you for your goals, I appologize if I sound like a broken record.

 

From reading your response, I'm still not 100% sure what they are.  I gather from your various responses that your goals, all equally important are:

 

    1) Raise awareness

    2) Raise funding

    3) Get volunteers

 

If this is incorrect or there are others, please add; we should have a concise list before getting started with design.

 

I would suggest keeping the homepage simple; the home page right now is cluttered with a lot of text, links and options;   When visitors see a lot of text and links they get overwhelemed and intimidated.   There is no organization for the links, and many visitors have no idea what to expect from links like "Image Bank" or "Video Bank" or "Travel" or "Vacancies" or "Discussion" or "Library" w/o actually clicking on the link (which many busy visitors might not even bother to do). 

 

In this case, simple is better; the less text and content you present to the user at a single time, the more guided and better their experience will be and the easier it is to keep them focused on your goals.

 

I would suggest a home page with just your mission & vision and some pictures, with the following 3 simple links (perhaps a tree of links to the left of the page, always visible, or just the 3 links on the main page).

 

    Who we are  (content from the current home page -- history)

    What we do (projects, publications, e.t.c.)

    Get Involved   (donate, volunteer, buy a book (library))

 

Feel free to suggest other alternatives. 

 

P.S. I'm going away on vacation for the next 10 days and will be away from email starting tomorrow.

 

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From: cc.suro@gmail.com [mailto:cc.suro@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Chandeep Corea
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 7:39 AM
To: Anastasia Wincorn
Cc: Tsirlin, Igor (IT); mark weckel; Ravi Corea; Liz Smith; slwcs.et.web-redesign@blogger.com
Subject: Discussions about the structure and function of the SLWCS Website [wrd]

Hi All

Anasatasia,
Thanks for your input. The essence of what you are saying about our mission is what we included in the new brochure about SLWCS (attached) -albeit it is only focussed on the SEHP project. I also agree that most small funding will come through personal contacts but I do think the website is important in the final decision as people would like to know the details of where there money is going -so newsletters and continual updates to the website become essential.

Igor,
Can you take on the challenge and responsibility of re-writing the front page text and suggesting images for it, as Anastasia has suggested?

Igor, Mark and Anastasia
I think it is very important for you 3 to get together and suggest an optimal framework and summary of the type of information you need for the website ( i.e page structure). This should be based on the updated brief I sent you earlier. Once this is done -Ravi, the PM's and I can add in any missing details or other required information.

all the best,

On Dec 5, 2007 12:49 AM, Anastasia Wincorn <stwincorn@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

 

Just a side note, a good place to start in figuring out how to gear the website towards which audience is the organization's mission.  The vast majority of decisions to provide funding or to volunteer are mission-based, so that one statement should be the core of the site.  This central focus will allow the website to appeal to all three of the audiences you mentioned simultaneously.  Soliciting individual donations is a little different, in that they are based primarily on personal relationships.  Personal letters or calls to past volunteers or would be far more likely to garner donations than a spiffy website. 

The way the SLWCS's mission is stated lends itself well to organizing the information you want to get across, i.e., how are you innovators, what kinds of projects are you doing, how can people get involved. Highlighting the organization's emphasis on innovative action and creative problem-solving will appeal to funders (foundations love new and better) and set the SLWCS apart from competitors in terms of attracting volunteers.  You are wasting one of your most valuable assets by burying your mission at the bottom of your web page.     
What will be more difficult is integrating the vision statement.  Perhaps this could involve testimonials of past volunteers or locals involved in SLWCS projects or downloadable clips from videos or NG programs that you've been involved in.  In any case, the mission's much more important.   

The info on the home page is great, but would be better in an "about us" section.  The front page should be project-based with lots of great pictures of Sri Lankan people and animals and volunteers. 

That's my two cents for now.  I hope it's helpful.

Anastasia

Chandeep Corea <cc@slwcs.org> wrote:

Hi Igor,

 

Thanks for the detailed email. Please see below for some initial responses.

On Dec 3, 2007 9:51 PM, Tsirlin, Igor (IT) <Igor.Tsirlin@morganstanley.com> wrote:

Hi,

 

The document sent out earlier resembles the old website -- it is the same sections that are already on the web now 

 

Yes because I did the web re-development plan in 1st quarter of 2006 and have been implementing it slowly, as and when I had time. You guys are welcome to re-do that to fit with what's discussed below and you feel is the best for the website. The actual old sites since 1997 are/will be in the http://archives.slwcs.org

 

 Is the redesign simply a facelift to give the website a new look and feel? If yes, we can start redesigning right away.

 

This is a great question. I am going to put it back to you all. Do you think it needs a facelift? what can it do better? where does it fail? what does it do well? consider these questions not only as yourselves but as potential volunteers, potential funding agency reps, and general wildlife enthusiasts and rate the importance.

 

Lets then see what is the same for each of these types of viewers (target audiences) and use that to structure the site. 

For example as a volunteer I would like to clearly know what type of work I would do, what facilities are provided, what it costs, what others have to say about it, what my time/money really does, etc before I come and after I come it would be to maybe give a small donation every year, update myself on the project I worked on, suggest it to friends, look for new and different opportunities to return for or even just visit the local friends I made...

 

If the redesign is not a facelift, we need more concrete content and direction; the document is too vague for us to get a good idea of how to proceed.  There are two options here;  option 1 is we help you organize the content based on your goals and objectives;  option 2 is you give us the exact content you want on each page, as well as all links you'd like us to set up and how the nagivation should flow and we simply transfer it to the web applying the design.

 

I am sorry to say that it will need to be something in-between and based on the results of the above excercise.

 

Offcourse we will fill in the exact content and give you the text, images, graphs etc that are needed but we will need to discuss and you tell us what exactly you want as a wireframe. This could be something like the last page of the document which has the "Sample Text for home pages...". You are more than welcome to change this to what you think would be most effective.

 

 

If you go with option 1, we will help you organize the content but we will need the following:

 

What do you hope to accomplish with the website redesign?

 

For it to serve the different user groups more effectively

 

what are your goals from this website in order of importance so we can custom tailor the website to achieve those goals.  I.e . if your primary goal is to raise funding we can make the website focus on that primarily, and then have smaller subsections on everything else.   If it is to raise awareness, we can focus on the studies and projects, e.t.c .;  generally, the more specific you are with what you hope to accomplish the better; it is very difficult to make a website that is equally effective at achieving many objectives, i.e. raise funding and awareness and get volunteers e.t.c;

 

All 3 are actually very important. Maybe we should look at it as subdomains for the volunteer and awareness centered material, similarly to http://gis.slwcs.org and focus the main www.slwcs.org only for funding agency information?

 

Basically though everyone is interested in what we are doing and details on how we do it and possibly how they can help or work with us.

 

Also please provide some paragraphs about each goal to the target audience; i.e. if goal #1 is to raise funding, please give us some text that you'd like us to publish to help you make that appeal on the web.

 

 

I would rather this come from you based on the current website and any specific questions you have to ask us.

 

Once I have this, I  can come up with a wireframe word document and we can fill it any blanks; once the wireframe has text and everyone is happy with it, I will transfer it to the web.    

 

 

I think the wireframe is essential for us to get the detailed content for the pages but the general information can be taken from the attached SLWCS-Brief which is still being drafted but includes all our current projects and updates on them.

 

 

If you go with option 2, you can provide the content exactly as you want it and where you want it, but you have to be specific.   I will need the following:

 

For each page that you want to see on the web, I will need a word document, complete with text and a description of all links that should be on that page, as well as where it should link to.  Each link can be described like "Link to projects ( projects.doc) here."   I will then take your word document, incorporate the design and transfer it to the web.  This has to be complete, otherwise you will have a lot of under construction pages.  Option 2 would also have a faster time to market since we would be taking a lot of the guesswork out of what it is you envisioned.

 

 

It's not really a choice but middle ground here. We can't work on a page by page design. It needs to be template based so that every projects information is presented in a similar fashion for continuity and ease of navigation. It maybe worthwhile thinking of a database driven site so that the project info is automatically updated using text and images that we email to a certain address or ftp to a particular directory. The site would therefore be dynamic and not have static html pages.

 

That being said the pages should have some more flare and design elements for ease of reading and easy informational use than the current rudimentary, text based pages.

 

The main thing is that we need to be able to update the website with new information at least every other month and this should be done with minimal extra effort by the project managers. This workflow organisation is what is essential. The website needs to be current.

 

  With either approach you will have the opportunity to provide feedback and make changes during the entire process; Hopefully this will be an effective way for us to get more concrete direction for what it is youre looking for.

 

I am sure it will be.

 

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.Thank you,
Igor

 

thanks for working on this. I am sure this effort will make our website into one of the most effective in education, volunteer recruitment and fund raising.

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