We re-designed our website with Rad Campaign from 2012-2013 and Anne was my point of contact, my steadfast rock, and my website “EMT” from that time until she left Rad Campaign. – Erica Noyes, Senior Development and Communication Associate at Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled
My role(s): UX Architect, Project Manager, Drupal Developer.
Approach
Coming into the project already in-progress, I first had to evaluate the work Monkey Helpers’ Director of Development and Senior Development and Communication Associate had done on restructuring their site’s Information Architecture. I created a sitemap enabling them to visualize improvements I suggested to the Support Us and Program sections.
I then translated this structure into the Functional Requirements document which I would use for back-end development on Drupal creating content types, fields, and custom Drupal views.
Rad Campaign’s waterfall process and deliverables were unfamiliar to the stakeholders at Monkey Helpers; this meant they needed close guidance through the process.
My dual roles as Developer and Project Manager meant I was able to give them more insight into the process as well as faster evaluations of changes requests and what impact they might have on the project’s scope and cost, working with them to find the most cost-effective route to their goals.
After I worked with them, they better understood how to engage site visitors using more compelling content.
Content Strategy and editorial calendars also came into play for the first time for Monkey Helpers. Their previous content strategy gave “about us” content prime placement on the site’s homepage creating a stale, inactive presence.
I developed a content strategy for Monkey Helpers that enables them to highlight recent achievements and got them thinking about ways to tell the organization’s story with recent events updates and more appealing evergreen content.
Because Drupal was a new system for the stakeholders at Monkey helpers, I created and delivered several basic and advanced site management trainings for staff responsible for site upkeep both throughout the site migration process and after the new site launched.
Deliverables
Rad Campaign’s practice at this time was to use Omega as a base for all custom Drupal themes. I used Omega to create:
- a subtheme
- custom deltas
- contexts
- views
- callouts
- CSS
During my four years at Rad Campaign I continued to be the primary point of contact for Monkey Helpers for maintenance – including Drupal core and module security updates, implementation of SSL, and the implementation of functionality to facilitate specific end of year giving tactics – and site change requests including incorporating functionality for donations when Monkey Helpers switched eCRM providers.
In 2012 when Monkey Helpers engaged Rad Campaign it was the firm’s policy to develop responsive websites as an additional-fee add on to a contract. At the time of signing and while I was at Rad Campaign, Monkey Helpers declined to move forward with responsive site development.
