Arcata Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) is a great local corporation that provides loans and grants to local and regional businesses. From 1984 to June 30th 2015, they've supplied over $67 million dollars in loans to local businesses and community endeavors. In that time they've worked alongside some pretty amazing local businesses like Holly Yashi, Dick Taylor Chocolates, Open Door Health Clinic and the Carson Block. To say the least when Susan Seaman -- their Program Director -- reached out we were thrilled with the opportunity to work with them. Their primary concern was that their old site, which was built in 2010, had become neigh impossible to maintain and failed to provide any real value to the local community. Their web presence was lacking professionally and we at EvenVision were tasked with the overhaul.
AEDC's old site failed to effectively serve the community because of its lack of information and the staff's struggles with update the website caused the site's content to fall out of date quickly. The new site needed to not only clean up the presentation of the information, but also be simple for the staff at AEDC the maintain.
- Embed-able entities for rich galleries and slideshows.
- Integrated map to display regions and loan quantities.
- Easy to use content management system
- Rich Gallery of Success Stories with profiles of local & regional businesses that received capital from AEDC.
- Responsive theme for user access and friendliness.
We were able to craft a professional website that features relevant content for visitors to be informed and take action. Meaning that the website is now capable of serving the community, but even more the website now allows the staff at AEDC to make quick updates and keep on top of the times.
A Client Focused CMS
AEDC's old site was built on a stock version of the Drupal development framework, but it had become unruly and problematic when trying to make even the simplest changes to their site owing to the poor UI on the backend. There were so many issues the site ultimately became a sore point for the organization as the staff turned their focus towards higher value work. When we were brought in to help, we knew that we could go in and fix the old site but it would be akin to patching holes in sponge. We proposed switching over to our CMS, and the results speak for themselves. The site no longer fights AEDC's staff, but helps them distribute important financial advice and information to the local community and entire region.
At EvenVision we pride ourselves on the amount of work we've put into developing a Content Management System that features a clean & friendly UI for the backend. We've spent countless hours refining the system so that while it's build on top of the same Drupal that the old AEDC site was, our clients often comment "wow, this is great... it's clean... and straight forward, I can actually do something with this..." when they see how our CMS compared to the stock Drupal that most developers leave their clients with. On our system we've cut away the fat, leaving just the essential elements required for a client to achieve their goals and not bring the site crashing to the ground.
Our clients often comment "wow, this is great... it's clean... straight forward, I can actually do something with this..."
Providing Valuable Information
AEDC's old site was struggling to provide information to visitors for two primary reason:
- The site was difficult for the staff to use and maintain (resolved in part with new website CMS).
- The site's professional image was dated, and a bit childish.
- Parts of the site were just straight-up broken.
A great example of this would be the warning message on the homepage when anyone would visit.
[Screenshot from AEDC's old website]
It's easy to imagine how a loud warning message on a businesses homepage can sow seeds of doubt into visitors about the organization. But even more than the warning message, the site's homepage struggled to present a cohesive message with clear information in a accessible and beautifully functional manner.
We resolved these issues by:
- Establishing a Core Message
- Focusing and Refining the Sites Value
- Removing the Need for Entering Content Multiple Times
1 - Establishing a Core Message
AEDC's old site struggled to provide a clear message to visitors which was caused by a lack of focus on the homepage. Sitting down with Susan we focused on establishing the primary goal of the homepage and the core information that needed to be distributed throughout the site. We learned that visitors arriving at the site should be able to accomplish the following quickly and with ease.
Acquire information:
- Learn about AEDC's communities values
- Learn about what AEDC does
- Learn about AEDC's past success
- See AEDC's geographic scope
Take Action:
- Apply for loans
- Contact
Get Involved:
- See upcoming community events
In essence, they needed their website homepage to be a hub of useful community opportunities for visitors to grasp hold of.
It's important to note that this wasn't instantaneous, we used a process to develop a homepage that really sung the right tune. Throughout the project with AEDC, we created numerous iterations before we finally nailed the right image for AEDC, but the time and effort required was well worth it. Great things aren't built overnight, and at EvenVision we know and embrace this because we desire to create great things that help people.
"Great things aren't built overnight, and at EvenVision we know and embrace this because we desire to create great things that help people."
2 - Focusing and Refining the Site's Value:
What we did to clean up and focus the homepage and whole website into a hub of useful and accessible community information.
- Clean up and develop clear sections for key information that would isolate the information into quickly digestible chunks
- Present a clear Call to Action: "We finance opportunity 'apply here.'"
- Couple the Call to Action with a Feature Image that sends presents not only an image that presents the right message but also allows for quick access to applications.
- Develop an dynamic display for core information "business lending, in the community, success stories" that utilized Ajax techniques to maximize interaction and help remove clutter around the content.
- Present the interactive Geographic Scope to quickly provide visitors with valuable information.
- Provide a dedicated section for Upcoming Events that automatically displays the upcoming events and removes past events to encourage engagement.
- Utilize high quality Fonts to present information with distraction.
- Focusing the main navigation menu from 9 pathways to 4.
Now when you visit the site, you're presented with a much more engaging content that is clear and focused into straight forward sections for optimum clarity. This not only helped clean up their professional image but refocused their site to being a useful tool for the community.
3 - Removing the Need for Entering Content Multiple Times
The Problem: Often a website's feature information develops inconsistencies because they need to enter the information on their site multiple times in different areas: In it's dedicated location, a pathway page, and on the homepage. When we reviewed AEDC's website needs and desires we knew that we needed to remove the need for all this management overhead, otherwise we risked creating a website that perpetuated their current issues of being cumbersome and unruly to edit and having their professional image fall behind.
Our Solution: Automatically pull controlled content from their original location and display it, or a select detail, on any other page required. This means that their websites homepage does not become a burden and headache to keep up with and becomes a means of distributing relevant information that funnels people to the right locations.
For Example: the dynamic display of core information features a section on Success Stories, but instead of the staff having to enter the success stories on the pathway page, the success story profile and the homepage (or a total of 3 different times in 3 different places), they are able to enter the content once under the profile. From here, key details and summaries can be automatically pulled to the homepage, and the success stories pathway page. See graphics below:
Example 1: Enter content in each place it needs to appear.
Notice that to entry one single success story and have it appear in all of the different locations, would require three different entries. This can breed mistakes and discrepancies in the information. Not to mention being time consuming for a staff member to enter.
Example 2: Enter content once & let the website do the rest.
By automatically pulling information from the Success story, it can be entered once on the profile page, and then have it's key information and summaries of the details simply appear in the various other places that it needs to appear. This removes the issues with entering the content manually in different locations on the site, and saves time and energy for the staff maintaining and updating the site.
Interactive Map
AEDC needed a clear way to display to people their impact within different communities in their region. They dreamt of a map that could display their Geographic Scope and we were able to execute it beautifully for them. The map itself is simple to use with automated interactive pin-drops placed when a user adds a location. Brief descriptions and images only go to provide even more information about their involvement in that area.
Success Stories Pathway
AEDC needed a clean way to display summaries of their Success Stories to help people to explore them. We created a clean overview pathway page that provides quick summaries, images and information about each success story leaving it up the visitors to pick one and dive into the full story.
Success Story Profile
AEDC wanted to be able to display their success stories in a much more engaging and beautiful fashion. Showing the community development, and not just telling it. We were able to craft these easy to edit pages that feature large banner images, ample room for descriptions of the work and embeddable entities; which allow for slideshows to be placed within the text.
