ExtremeMarkover.org Blog

Transcript of Web Design World Boston-A WOW week in review

Here’s a short video of Debbie and why’s she supporting the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative. Bill Cullifer here with the World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) and the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative. I have the pleasure to be here at Web Design World with Debbie Smith. Debbie is a teacher from Florida Virtual School, and also a WOW member, has been a member for a number of years. Debbie, good afternoon, and thanks for agreeing to this interview.

DEBBIE SMITH: Hi Bill.

BILL: Debbie, you offered to participate and help out with the ExtremeMarkover, which we very much appreciated. For the viewers of this podcast, those that might have an interest in participating in this Markover for a non-profit, can you share why you offered to help and why is this important to you?

DEBBIE: Well, it’s a couple of things. One, it’s important to be active. Besides teaching the students, essentially that real experience. Often times you get stuck in the classroom and you don’t get to get out and get to do things. As a teacher you don’t have time to have a business of your own so being involved with this gives me the experience. It also lets the student see that I’m a real person with real skills too. It gives credibility to the students.

BILL: Very well said. Well, we certainly appreciate your support. Lots more information to come on the Extreme Markover. Thanks so much Debbie.

DEBBIE: Thanks Bill. Have a great day.

An Open Letter to the Web Professional Community

From Bill Cullifer, WOW Executive Director and ExtremeMarkover.org Chair

Thank you to the many that have agreed to provide volunteer support for the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative. To insure the success of this project, I’d like establish an initial parameter in which to work from. Please note that this is intended to be a group effort. Your direct involvement and feedback is important and very much appreciated throughout the process of this project.

Like any successful Web project, outlining the desired goals, expected outcomes, assembling the team, defining the customer’s requirements is of course mission critical to the success of this project. To that end, I’d like to recap a few of the goals that that WOW organization is hopeful to accomplish.

For me personally and professionally, I am hopeful that by working together on the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative we can accomplish the following:

•An opportunity to network with peers within the Web profession worldwide while giving back to the community
•To demonstrate Web professional best practices with real world examples by making over sites for designated non-profits on a regular basis
•To utilize this initiative and the support from the community, to educate those that aspire within the Web profession and those that teach Web topics regarding our process, including but not limited to the strategies and our design and development plans for building a website from scratch
•To elevate the Web profession by demonstrating our collective professionalism and compassion for others

With all of that said, its time to place a “call for participation” regarding our next steps for the 2008 project. In other words, let’s begin the dialogue process utilizing this blog for the design, development, implementation and integration for this years selected non-profit organization. As volunteers to this effort, we invite you to participate in on the discussion.

Based on early feedback from the committee members, we have a basic framework to work with and the web address for this year’s non-profit organization. (see Community Voices )

With those resources in mind, let’s utilize this blog to establish next steps. For example, please use the comments fields on this blog to share your thoughts OK?. For starters, here’s my wish list for desired outcomes:

•Together, let’s define the scope of this project and what the outcomes that we desire will be.
•Also, let’s establish what the process and workflow will look and feel like. For example, where do we start and where do we end?
•Let’s outline and measure goals so we’ll know when we’ve met those goals.
•Let’s self select from the task (design, development, pm etc) that are required and create an organizational chart on who does what when.
•Let’s determine the amount of hours required to complete the task and commit to some kind of a timeline for completion.
•Also, let’s establish how we will communicate our progress and accomplishments. For example, since this is open to the public could this blog be utilized for communication among all involved?
•As a baseline, let’s establish an org chart of some kind to establish the required steps and to monitor the process.
•Also, lets work together to determine what additional resources or specialties that might be required to complete the ExtremeMarkover.org project.
•Together, let’s establish an action plan complete with documented time lines, division of labor our steps used etc.

Questions, comments or concerns? Please send us an e-mail at info AT extreme markover.org

Thanks in advance!

The following comments represent solicited feedback from the Web professional community participating as Extreme Markover Committee Members and Advisers. The goal of soliciting the feedback from the committee is to use a design and development guide for those agreeing to participate as volunteers.

From Lance Loveday, CEO Closed Loop Marketing

My initial site review:

Analytics
- Implement Google Analytics ASAP – even before the redesign, as gathering some baseline data in that tool prior to the redesign will make the Before/After analysis go much smoother. It’s easy, free and extremely powerful. We recommend all clients install it, even if they’re already using another analytics system as well.
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Design
- The first impression is very poor, contributing to what I expect are very high bounce rates for the site. Installing Google Analytics would make this easy to validate.
- Start over from scratch. Incremental changes aren’t going to be enough to address the myriad design, coding, and IA issues in play here.

Messaging
- What does this organization do? It’s there, but it takes some work on the users’ part to figure it out – and many people just won’t make the effort. It’s also unclear what the purpose of the site is. Provide information, an opportunity to interact with the organization, donate…?

Call To Action
Having worked with a number of non-profits over the years, I’m fairly confident that one of the organization’s goals for the site is to collect donations. As such, that path/call to action should be clearer and more heavily emphasized. The Donate function should be separated out on its own and not combined as currently done with “Donation & Pins.”
That labeling is unclear/confusing – and further detracts from the site’s credibility.

Aaron Gustafson, Principal Easy! Designs, LLC

The first thing they need to do is spend some time on Information Architecture. The site is highly disorganized for a non-profit looking to disseminate crucial information. The homepage (and the site as a
whole) need to tell the user what they need to know and why it’s important. Right now it’s about as comprehensible as a MySpace page. If possible, it’d also be great to try to pull in as much content as possible to the site itself (maps, etc) to reduce the need to go out to other resources. Or, if they do need to link outside the site, those links should explicitly indicate that they go elsewhere.

Next up is a no-brainer: the design needs to support the brand, content, and IA plan. The visual clutter needs to be reduced and the whole thing needs to become more friendly and accessible (in the most general sense). Code-wise, the whole thing needs a massive re-write, but you would expect me to say that. The popups/new windows need to go. It also could do with a stiff dose of semantics.

With all of that, the site would be 200x better.

The ExtremeMarkover.org Executive Committee is pleased to announce the selection of the 2008 non-profit organization to benefit from the makeover call for participation:

* Community Voices of Boston, MA

About: Community Voices

Voices of Involved Citizens Encouraging Safety Inc. helps citizens take an active role in their safety through advocacy, education and awareness.