Western Cascade Fruit Society Web Site Development

The Western Cascade Fruit Society web design used simple modifications to a popular WordPress Theme.

With a new volunteer web manager who didn’t want to become a coder and a strong desire to have a central source for communicating with members in chapters spread across Western Washington, the Western Cascade Fruit Society (WCFS) needed a web site redesign. The site at the time was an out-of-date hobby site housed on a member’s Geocities account and required manual HTML edits of table-based code with every change. WCFS wanted to consolidate and expand the multi-chapter information as well as distribute their newsletters (old and new) in non-print format. In addition, they wanted at least a minimal security system to reserve some information for members only. Like most non-profits, the budget was tight. Using WordPress, customized PHP code in a customized template was created. On the wish-list was also a calendar of events and a photo gallery as well as the capability to allow select members to submit articles of interest.

The lucious colors and clean layout improved the web design's usabilty

A clean, bold, 3-column template design was used with inexpensive stock photography that rotates in the masthead depending upon the section viewed. Recent posts were run along the right-hand, along with an Event Calendar, so members could quickly see what was new while the left-hand column was used for hierarchical navigation and administration. The bright, bold, fruity colors on a clean white background give a warm, inviting look-and-feel evoking the spring-summer growing season while making the images stand out. site usability over the previous version improved with a cleaner, clearer information architecture as well.

After determining actual security needs and issues, it was determined that using the built-in WordPress password capability was sufficient and within budget and technical level of the administrator and editors. Members-only information can be password protected and the password can be changed periodically and the change distributed via email to members. This would also allow individual chapters to add their own protected content eventually.

The new volunteer web site manager and newsletter editors were trained on the basics of using the new site in a couple of hours and during the course of the following year additional training allowed the manager to learn more advanced techniques and capabilities of the site. Meanwhile, additional members and chapters began participating in posting information and the site became the contact center it was always meant to be.

And all of this within a non-profit’s budget (including the donation to the Event Calendar plugin developer and the stock photography)!