Illinois Humanities Council »
The Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) is a non-profit organization that funds and produces educational opportunities, whicu support humanities scholar programs. These programs are intended to reach many people of diverse backgrounds. Through their new website, IHC effectively and efficiently communicates their programs and events.
Goals
The Illinois Humanities Council website was difficult for front-end users to navigate, making it hard to find program and event information. This problem arose from a CMS that allowed administrators little control over formatting, which conflicted with the need for frequent content updates. The website also required a fresh look and feel to match IHC’s current marketing efforts.
Solutions
- Usability Analysis : Duo interviewed IHC’s target market to understand how the website was being used. These interviews produced insights on how to create a site that was not only user-friendly, but could be accessed frequently by their target audience. Based on this research, Duo suggested a new site map and page flow for implementation.
- Information Architecture : Due to the number of programs and events in need of regular updates, Duo provided a content management system that allowed IHC to update their content as often as necessary.
- Optimizing Keywords : As a part of IHC’s effort to be more visible, Duo provided marketing analysis on the keywords used most often to search for the information on IHC’s site. From Duo’s report, IHC was able to implement keywords that would increase search engine relevancy.
- Enhanced Marketability : Duo created a contact form that asks end-users to provide information about themselves, so they can receive personalized mailings of upcoming events.
- Section 508 Compliant : Duo designed the new site to ensure access for people with impaired vision, configuring it for assistive devices used to access computer-based information, which translate what's on a computer screen into automated audible output.
Results
- Enhanced look and feel, due to integration of their internal system with Drupal. For example, a map was created to show their events throughout the state of Illinois, and gives visitors the ability to search for future events.
- Improved usability for ease or use: the integration also allowed administrators to push content through more directly to the website. The website is also Section 508 compliant.
- Site content can be updated internally, so current content is always available to end users.
- Google Custom was integrated, and the site is ranked higher by search engines due to keyword relevancy.
- Site updates have lead to increased website activity from their user base.
- IHC can do targeted marketing by a segmented contact form and e-newsletter integration
This site was built using Drupal, an open source content management program. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.
