mindgraffiti

I find that rebuild projects often focus on the negative: what needs redone and what needs improvement. What I often fail to communicate is why I am excited about projects like this to begin with: because the site has a lot of potential! So before I discuss any more of the improvements I would like to see, here are a few things that the Parents as Teachers website does right:

1. Content is king. Every bit of information on the site is relevant, useful and kept up-to-date. Past events are posted to give new parents an idea of what to expect in the future, even if the future date of the event is unknown.
2. Information architecture by design. Instead of thrown-together content, the information is organized with a purpose. For example, on the landing page the featured events line the right side of the page and events categorized by age line the left side. The school district’s disclaimer is kept at the bottom, in a smaller text size – a normal text treatment used for secondary information and legalese.
3. Readability is excellent. A few splashes of color and a touch of informal fonts convey an open, friendly attitude without becoming distracting.
4. Acknowledges the visitor. That the site even exists means that someone, somewhere has acknowledged how nice it is to have this information available, at a busy parent’s convenience. Another way the visitor is recognized is in the tone of the writing. For topics like Kindergarten Registration, it addresses parents in a direct manner: “If you missed the Kindergarten Registration [...].” then gives a full set of instructions on the page, arming parents with the information they need to get stuff done.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Nothing new happening at work, so I have been focusing on freelance projects to help keep me sharp. The local St. Joseph Parents as Teachers is a group I find relevant and worthwhile, so I’ve volunteered my skills to revamp their website.

Landing page for the St. Joseph Parents as Teachers

The First Step

Research. Who owns the parent site? St. Joseph School District. What technology are they using? SJSD is using a combination of ASP and ASP.NET, but the Parents as Teachers site is plain vanilla HTML. That indicates they have independent control. A good thing for me, but possibly a hassle for the Parents as Teachers volunteer who has to deal with managing a site and who had no idea where to start.

Step Two

Find a contact that manages the site. Easy enough, with the Contact Us page.

Hi Debbie,

Scott and I took Erik to our first Parents as Teachers meeting last night. The Water Play for Babies meeting was a lot of fun, and Scott’s taking Erik to the Infant Massage today.

You guys do some great work and I was hoping I could help out. I’m a web developer by profession and I design and build websites for a living. If you need any help with the Parents as Teachers website, I’d love to volunteer. Feel free to contact me by e-mail: [x] or phone: [x].

Cheers,
Thuy Copeland

Wait for reply.

You must be a Godsend.  I am in Virginia now on holiday, but am returning next week. YES, we’d love help on our website.  It is connected to the SJSD site, but we know there is much work to do.
I’ll contact you in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks so much.  I’m glad you enjoyed the class.
Debbie

Now what? My goal is always to make this as easy as possible. Busy people want managers. They don’t want to babysit me.

Hi Debbie,

My goal is to make this as painless for you as possible. I’m ready to work on the site, I just need 2 pieces of information to get this project rolling:

1) FTP username & password
Since they have independent control over their site and do not use ASP, I think it’s safe to assume they have access to an FTP account.
2) Information on events (Date, time, location, etc.)

If you have a Word document or other electronic file, just e-mail me that. I can work with whatever you have.

Bonus:
Contact info for the tech person that provided the FTP info.

Thanks,
Thuy Copeland

I should have made the e-mail a bit shorter, but that’s okay. It only contains 1) relevant, necessary information; and 2) a call to action.

While I Wait

I downloaded their files as a temporary backup and started looking at options. Since the preferred server-side language of choice is ASP, I know it’s highly unlikely they have PHP installed. WordPress is likely out of the question, but I’ll certainly ask. That means possibly sticking with a Dreamweaver/Template-based site. Not a real problem, though. I can still use JavaScript libraries and a nice site design to spice it up.

Aside from technical constraints, I consider their content. What content exists right now? Is it presented in a way that’s easy for a parent to access? How I can generate more for them? What other content would parents be interested in seeing? From my own limited perspective as a parent, I would like to see the events highlighted on the landing page. I would also like to see a map embedded in the “How to Find Us” page, so I can get driving directions or see if I’m already familiar with the area. Already I’m thinking Google Calendar, Google Map and a Flickr photostream (or a local slideshow, depending on their needs).

Design is not what I want to focus on, so I search for a few open-source designs. From the color schemes used on the site and experience from the group meetings, I know the basic messages Parents as Teachers wants to convey: an emphasis on fun, education, and kids. Something bright, bold, open and cheery would do them justice. I take a few screenshots and bookmark the site designs.

I can’t wait to get this rolling!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Is it something intrinsic, or an external influence? To answer my own question, it simply takes interesting projects to motivate me to do good work. The trouble comes when there is no real work available.

Things have been very quiet in the Angus world. In consequence, things have been very quiet on this blog. With 2 genetic defects recently discovered in the Angus breed, the breeders have postponed their usual sales as they scramble to test their animals. Add a recession as the cherry on top and you have one very quiet company.

June and July are typically quiet months for this business anyhow. What makes it unbearable is the side projects drying up. Every summer and every quiet period between breeders’ sales, I have made a mad dash to work on or finish up a side project. They have varied from posting the sale books online efficiently to improving our web sites en masse to solving the Photo department’s cataloging issues to building prototype web apps to campaigning for improved Angus Journal and Angus e-Classifieds sites.

With no side projects to focus my energy on, the boredom is driving me up the wall. I like identifying high-level problems and solving them. There are plenty of problems left to solve, I just keep running into a wall of red tape and No! answers. My nose hurts and the last wall nearly broke my glasses.

Since there aren’t any interesting projects going on, I’ll share a few good links instead:

• For recent graduates and anyone looking for an unconventional road to changing careers, try Recession Proof Your Career, by Charlie Hoehn [via I Will Teach You To Be Rich].
• If you’re looking for deep, thoughtful writing, try any of Paul Graham’s essays. Pick one at random. You won’t be disappointed.
• Inspiration and instructions on how to live simple.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Subtle touch-ups to their design. Cleaner HTML and CSS implemented.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Some of our long-awaited projects have been released, so I thought I would make note of them. Web Services now has a respectable web site to represent our department. Now that Creative Media and our department’s sites have launched, I wonder when we will be working on one for Special Services?

Our parent company has launched their touched-up design with a brand new back end.  A revamped Angus e-Classifieds site has also arrived, all ASP.NET powered and compliments of the IS department.

The e-classifieds site was the first project where the Web department had the chance to work directly with the IS department. It was exciting to get the chance to collaborate with them. From a technical standpoint it was refreshing to find others who read Lifehacker and wanted to argue the finer points of jQuery versus MooTools. From the business perspective, the e-classifieds will finally become a viable revenue source for our department. The old site was so archaic it was actually losing money every time someone called to post an ad.

One step forward: our e-lists are now sent using a less-spammy/less-amateurish method.

…and one step backward: our e-lists no longer have a limit to the number we can send per day. We used to tell clients that they needed to book in advance, because we only scheduled 2 full page e-mails to be sent every Tuesday and Thursday. (Still too many, IMHO.) Now we have no limits. April is one of our busiest months. We sent out 83 e-list messages in April alone. Talk about e-mail overload! It’s no surprise our e-list subscribers never hover far above the 4,000 mark.

There are other projects waiting for the IS department’s attention, but hopefully they can help us with the Sale Books problem next. Maybe they can help us create our own Issuu-like application. A Flex app (built by us) powered by ASP.NET with a Microsoft database (built by them).

Popularity: 3% [?]