Real Change Website
Date: 6.19.09
Portfolio:
Web Design, Web Development
Type: Freelance
Status: Completed
Live Site: http://www.realchangenews.org
Project Description
Real Change is a Seattle non-profit organization and street newspaper which seeks to empower the homeless population of the Greater Seattle area and raise awareness around the issues of homelessness and poverty in Seattle and nationwide. I was a Real Change employee for over a year, and was regularly responsible for troubleshooting technical problems in the office. Several months after I left Real Change to pursue a career in website design and development, I was contacted by my friend and Real Change volunteer, Dana Sutliffe. Apparently, she and Real Change’s Executive Director, Tim Harris, had been discussing the state of their website, and had made the decision to finally update it to a new user-friendly, dynamically-driven website.
The previous Real Change website was over eight years old, and wasn’t exactly “dynamic”... in fact, quite the opposite. It was little more than a vast collection of static HTML files (along with some CSS), which was proving increasingly difficult to manage. Every week, when the newest issue of Real Change would come out, and the website would have to be updated by copying the previous week’s HTML files, and altering them one by one. This was hardly convenient for non-profit who didn’t have tech staff on-hand, and was often carried out by Dana Sutliffe, who had been updating the website for several years. Even with her experience, the process was time-consuming, and offered too many opportunities to create inconsistencies across the pages. Additionally, any updates to other portions of the website (such as the information about the organization, or during a fund drive), also had to be performed solely by Dana. Although she was happy to volunteer and help out the organization, it was becoming difficult to keep up with the tide of requests from staff members, and the staff was finding it inconvenient to have to go through an already over-worked volunteer to make even the simplest changes.
The solution I proposed was to build a new Real Change website using a content management system called ExpressionEngine. This new system would allow staff members and volunteers (with the appropriate privileges) to make instant updates to the site whenever they were needed, and would drastically speed-up the weekly newspaper update. The Real Change staff were thrilled, and along with creating a re-vamped website design, I built their new website system using PHP, ExpressionEngine, XHTML, Javascript, and CSS (along with some developmental support from Dana, who created several site widgets and the menu bar).
Once the new system was in place, I launched the new site, and provided training to the staff and volunteers on how to update the website. As well, I created detailed (yet readable) documentation they could use as a reference, as well as to train new staff and volunteers. All in all, I provided them with a newly sustainable system, and last I heard they were still using and enjoying it! All website content is now dynamically-driven and editable via their custom ExpressionEngine installation.
Real Change Website: Front Page
Real Change Website: Current Issue Page
The current issue overview page. Each issue of Real Change (from the current week's issue to the issues in the archive) has a page that uses this template.
Real Change Website: Blog Page
The Blog page, which lists the 10 most recent entries, and paginates later entries.
Real Change Website: Contact Page
Real Change Website: Logo Addition
In addition to the existing Real Change logo, I created the logo add-on for the site's banner. Real Change employs homeless vendors to sell their newspaper as part of their empowerment program, and I wanted to provide a visual representation of that and place it front-and-center. The illustration was created off of existing images of Real Change vendors, and stylized to match the Real Change logo and colors.
Real Change Website: Donation Banner
Real Change is a nonprofit that runs on donations as well as on newspaper sales, and as such needed a series of large donation banners. This is one of the banners I created for them.
Real Change Website: Website Manual, Sample 1
The front page from one of a series of website updating and maintenance manuals.
Real Change Website: Website Manual, Sample 2
A sample page from a website updating manual.
Real Change Website: Website Manual, Sample 3
A sample page from a website updating manual.
home .
portfolio .
blog .
about the studio .
contact
All website materials are © 2012 Molly Watson.
Site design by: Watson Design.
Please e-mail questions and concerns to the Webmaster
