Well, first of all there are a few words of encouragement to your team that I want to offer, because I have the sense that you may feel somewhat demoralized after last night.
- Multiple language sites are very difficult to figure out. It truly is a bear of a problem, and I appreciate the fact that you made a sincere attempt to address it. You missed an important UN standard (equal representation of languages) in your research on the constraints of the organization, but it's ab very particular problem that nobody else will have to face. Your solutions weren't necessarily incorrect for all cases (they were perfectly reasonable) -- they just happen to be wrong for this client
- presenting to a difficult client and having to justify your ideas is stressful and often frustrating. That said, try to see this as a very valuable life experience -- the kind of interaction you will have many more times if you are in this field as a professional. That said, it should be recognized that you had to deal with an added layer of pressure to which the other groups will not be subjected.
On the whole, you guys did an impressive amount of work and there were some really good elements to what you presented. I'll try to briefly summarize what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation here.
I thought it was very good that you took advantage of the meeting to do some market research and I was impressed that you created a survey and really thought through how you might pose questions to your stakeholders. I was disappointed though that I couldn't here some more detail about the user personas that came out of that process and thought that the 'audiences' that you outlined were not always audiences so much as groups or types of people. So more detail and specificity here would have helped.
I thought your re-work of the site-map/information architecture was excellent, and one of the big strengths of the presentation.
I thought your home page wire-frame was also excellent. I loved the information hierarchy and the use of big, highly visible action items (buttons) for donating etc.
I want to say that the suggestion that they have a high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth web site is pretty unrealistic, given that they already have to manage 4 sites for the different languages (this would effectively double that number) Similar, but better would be to suggest an altogether low-bandwidth-friendly site, which includes progressive enhancement of the content (through the use of video, animation, etc) whenever that is appropriate.
The biggest weakness in your presentation was that I thought you really tried to add too many things to their already understaffed operation. It seemed like you were suggesting everything but the kitchen sink as far as social media (facebook, blogs, a wiki(!) etc. etc.) I think for an organization that has blatant content management problems, partly related to their internationalization needs, adding new streams of conten to manage would be a counter-intuitive suggestion. The idea that they might be managed by stakeholders in the UNANIMA network seems implausible to me, but also really creates an even bigger content management headache for the people who are ultimately answerable for the content of the site.
That's all I have for now. Congratulations on getting to the finish line and gracefully handling a pretty challenging situation and project.
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Thanks, Ravi. I second your appreciation for how well the students handled an enormously difficult situation of having to present their first major Web project in front of the actual client. That's no easy feat, even when you've been doing this for a while!
ReplyDeleteI also second your point about the value of watching the client react. In some ways, that could have been the most valuable lesson to come out of last night--not just for the UNANIMA team but for the entire class. The reality is that many executives have a hard time grappling with new media and its potential for their organizations. The prospect of having to rethink everything about how they communicate with their membership and the broader public can be daunting--especially when they're already feeling overwhelmed by limited funds, understaffing, etc.
Moving on to my own notes about the presentation:
1) For me, the UNANIMA presentation was the mirror opposite of Lend-a-Hand India: its greatest strength was Lend-a-Hand's greatest weakness (and vice versa). In the UNANIMA case, I felt somewhat mystified as to the audience (apart from board members, that is). On the other hand, I had a clear sense of what the site has to offer--e.g., toolkits w/ resources on the three main topics.
2) Following from 1): I perceive a tension between whether UNANIMA wants to build an intranet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intranet) for its geographically scattered membership or a public facing Web site. For instance, they say they want youth, but to do what exactly? And, recalling Catherine's comment that her "membership would never stand for an English-only front page," it seems fair to ask: are you building this site for your membership or for a broader public? The audience question is KEY to figuring this site out.
3) Likewise for the newsletter: I'm not at all sure on what the contents would be or who would sign up for it, other than their membership. In which case, Constance's idea of a listserv (or multiple listservs) would make a lot more sense.
4) As Constance mentioned to me afterwards, for most "dot orgs", the idea of board members blogging would be something of a nightmare--board members can be loose cannons, and you can't tell them off as you answer to them. As I recall once suggesting to the UNANIMA team, why not simply suggest that UNANIMA canvass their networks to find an Alex de Waal equivalent (see http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/) who could blog on UNANIMA's behalf on their site, and give them a higher profile in the process.
5) Finally, I agree w/ Ravi that this presentation seemed to be more focused on the trees than the forest: I didn't get a clear sense of priorities (Phase 1, Phase 2).
All in all, though, I think it went very well, and like Ravi I thought you came up with a great new look for the Home Page, and I positively LOVED the tagline as well as the big "donate" etc. buttons. How could UNANIMA possibly go back to what they had before, after seeing that?!
I think everyone recognized the added difficulty of presenting in front of a client, especially one that seemed to be at odds with some of your suggestions, but you did a great job handling it!
ReplyDeleteThis team took a website that I thought looked like the Ukrainian national website and made it clearly into an organization's site that is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Like I mentioned during the presentation, I thought their choice of images were magnificent, and the combination of the redesigned Home page and these new photos will create a simpler, more pleasant user experience.
ReplyDeleteNicholas, I hadn't thought of that but I see what you mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Ukraine.svg
ReplyDeleteEven the Ukrainian national tourism website tones down the blue and yellow!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ukraine.com/