Project Profile: National Alliance for Grieving Children
Website 911: An Organization Specializing in Grief Gets a Massive Makeover
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Company:National Alliance for Grieving Children Website: http://www.nationalallianceforgrievingchildren.org Location: National Industry: Non-Profit Organization Management/Association Services: Web and graphic design, information architecture, usability, project management, web hosting, search engine optimization |
Quick Read
National Alliance for Grieving Children (NAGC) is one of the nation’s largest associations for organizations specializing in grief. The website is an important channel for professionals, as well as parents and caregivers, to find local resources for addressing loss. NAGC asked Talance, Inc. (http://talance.com), a Boston-area Web development and design firm that specializes in user-friendly websites for non-profits, to develop a new website that would express a delicate balance between hope and loss, while making it easier for professionals and caregivers to discover a wealth of information. It also had to be a platform that would be an online community for members and also be search engine optimized to expand to more members and clients.
The Challenge
Challenges of the existing website were:
- It was outdated, on a basic white website
- Although the existing website had advanced functionality, it was hidden from visitors and difficult to administer
- It lacked features that made it look vibrant and growing
- The usability on the website was low
Objectives
Talance’s main objectives were:
- Develop a professional-looking website with as many self-serve functions as possible
- Create an engaging and friendly design that remained sensitive to the subject while still expressing hope and healing
- Make it easy for members to sign up for events and access restricted content
- Show a growing collection of resources for professionals and caregivers
- Provide a way to easily add content to the website
- Optimize the website for search engines
Solution
Talance developed a site that combines a friendly and professional design that always looks evolving and intuitive. The features of the new website include:
Look and feel: The new website looks professional and warm.
Functionality: Talance created special features that made the website look active while only a small team was in charge of updates. In preparation for an upcoming feature on Sesame Street, it was also important to have a map of available centers and have a robust structure in case the site experienced a surge of traffic. It included:
- A blog feed to show the latest news and events.
- A slideshow to highlight several pages in a tight space.
- A robust site search engine.
- RSS feeds to gather information on new resources and blog entries.
- A tag classification system to allow more ways to view information.
- A custom illustrated map showing concentration of grief centers. A magnifier allows the users to see concentrations in the smaller Eastern states.
- A Twitter widget to show the most recent updates.
- A Web feed that shows relevant news from related organizations.
- The website can be moderated and managed easily thanks to a Drupal content management system.
- An active blog, on which readers can interact by posting comments.
Services provided
- Creative brainstorming and concepts
- Creative Web design
- Graphic design of infographic
- Information architecture and usability
- Project management
- Web hosting and set-up
- Search engine optimization
