Daniel Pearl Capstone

1. Daniel Pearl Capstone Edwin Kirsch, Emily Stewart, Jenny Barrett, YaraKlimchak

2. Overview — Our project • To redesign the Daniel Pearl Foundation website.

3. Overview — Our Clients • The Daniel Pearl Foundation: • “The Daniel Pearl Foundation was formed in memory of journalist Daniel Pearl to further the ideals that inspired Daniel's life and work. The Foundation's mission is to promote tolerance and understanding internationally through journalism, music and dialogue.” (danielpearl.org) • Ruth Pearl: Mother of Daniel Pearl • Paul Karlsen: Program director of DPF

4. Overview — Clients continued • Very motivated individuals • Care about DPF — on multiple levels • Small staff with lack of time to devote to site development • Live in California

5. Overview — The problem • Concerns with website • Visually unappealing • Text heavy • Absence of “human element” • Confusing navigation • “uninviting”

6. Problem-solving checklist • Understand the problem • Follow systematic plan • Evaluate hypothesis • Develop sub-goals • Get help • Put problem aside • Increase your knowledge domain — Lisa Bauer, MU Department Of Psychology

7. Understanding the problem • Our clients want a professionally done, new site. The main reasons why are: • To create aesthetic appeal • Fix navigation • Invite users to interact • Our level of web design experience: • Varying, but generally minimal • Our knowledge of the process of designing a website for a client: • Even more minimal

8. Remembering the problem, or facing recurring problems?

9. Our systematic plan • Research • Design • Develop mock-ups and new logo • Get advice and suggestions • Show product to clients and alter design accordingly • Code • Provide a guide, tools, and a product our clients can continue to use to develop the site

10. Our hypothesis • Our plan would make our goal achievable, despite shortcomings in experience working with clients, coding, and design

11. Part I, Research • Key Questions • What makes an effective non-profit website? • What are some examples? • What elements are important? • Who is our target audience? • Who is the Daniel Pearl Foundation? What do they want?

12. Effective non-profit websites • Vandelaydesign.com’s 40 best non-profit websites • Smashing Magazine: • “Make your site donor friendly” • “Make your site media friendly” • Volunteer friendly • Make purpose clear & immediately apparent • Content should take center stage • Include news section • Logo & colors should be consistent with promotional material

13. Key elements • From our research, we found that key elements of a non-profit site include: • Clear identity • Strong, compelling visuals, and color scheme • Catering toward target audience • Easy organization • Interactive elements

14. Example: Clinton Foundation

15. Part II, Our systematic plan • Create a mock-up and logo that reflects important elements found in research. • Seek input from experts • Give samples to clients • Alter design as needed • Code

16. Preliminary mock-ups

17. Input from experts • Mock-ups are unprofessional • Specifically, no clear sense of identity • Not cohesive • More research needed?

18. Sub-goal I: More research • Steve Krug — Don’t make me think • Design should reflect consumer’s needs • Should be catered toward what the site offers • Keep it simple • People should know what they are getting without having to spend much time processing information

19. Sub-goal II: Design Contest • With $ provided by DPF, we initiated a design contest. • “Designers,Are you interested in making $500 before Spring Break? A team of Convergence capstone seniors is redesigning the website of the The Daniel Pearl Foundation (http://danielpearl.org), a non-profit organization that promotes global, cross-cultural understanding through music, journalism and dialogue in honor of the late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl...”

20. Our winner: Alex Prestel

21. Confusion — Design alterations • Liked several design features… • Wanted a number of things changed • Including: • Logo • Colors • Fonts

22. One really big problem:

23. Sub-goal III design alterations: * Reflects some of the alternatives we offered.

24. Sub-goal IV: Navigation

25. Coding • With a limited amount of time left, we began to code. • Decision: Hard code the site • Google translate bar = important • Putting everything in java script, html means that everything can be read by Google services • Makes it easier to be read for tablets and other mobile devices • Problem: steep learning curve! • Tedious coding process • A lot of time requirement

26. Adding more content • In addition to coding, we wished to include elements that we thought were absent in the original website • Voice of a Daniel Pearl Fellow • UmarCheema video • Statistics and an infographic that demonstrates the Daniel Pearl Foundation’s global impact • More photos for the site

27. More work? • We propose this capstone project be continued as an interdisciplinary independent study. • The goal of this study would be to first work with Paul to get the site live, if need be • To fix any problems that arise • Also to increase traffic and to increase time on site through populating the social media

28. Reflections • It seems that given 16 weeks time, one might have previously expected more could be accomplishable • What slowed down progress? • Recurring issues, such as no firm step-by-step guide • Limited beginning knowledge domain • Should we measure our progress by what we accomplished?

29. Reflections continued • “True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice” – St. Francis • Perhaps, we should instead measure progress by what we learned: • Coding • Design • Problem-solving • Independence • Research skills • Professional communication • Selling your product