Nonprofit Website w/ Splash Page

[RDesignista]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted up a link to my one of my works. Today, I want to share a website for a nonprofit organization that helps fund and manage educational programs relating to Hawaiian culture.

Splash page
Before you flame me, please know that the splash page was not my idea. My clients call it a "landing page," but I call it a splash page. If you've been around websites for as long as I have (~ year 2000), you'll remember that back in the day, if you were to go to someone's site, you'd usually end up on a page that welcomed you to their website. There'd be an animation, or a big graphic, and a button that says "click here to enter website." No one does that anymore, but my client insisted. So, we have a splash page. LOL.

The design
You know what? Part of the joy of redesigns is taking my structure and applying it to messy websites. The old version of this website was quite a mess (see the old version). Furthermore, the colors used were brown, tan, and orange... and it resembled a big poop. I took a nonprofit theme and used it as a framework because it had an event calendar. You guys can't see it, but I also spent a lot of time adding admin functionality that my client can use. Custom sidebars, custom slideshow, custom backgrounds... you might think it's too much, but consider this: prior to this website, they had NO CONTROL over anything.

Color scheme
The organization is already branded as a orange-brown-yellow-earthy color scheme, so I did not want to deviate from that. I just did the best I could with a color palette that I find to be one of the most difficult to work with. My first draft and the final had a big difference in color scheme. I started out with brown and yellow (yikes). Then I gravitated to earthy colors. Then I settle on using brown with orange accents (orange is brown with high brightness btw). Overall, I'm glad that I stayed consistent with their color branding, despite how hard it was.


Anyway, please let me know what you think. My websites are more or less boring and structure the same way (I have a hard time being creative and deviating from what I normally find effective), but I always appreciate feedback. And I always want to keep these review threads going.

[m3n0tu18]

Hello,

Interesting concept there

Splashpages arn't too bad if they are used correctly. Jquery css3 animation etc.

1. I would personally have the Enter our website button above the initial images, as you have to scroll down to click the site, could confuse people.
2. I like the slideshow but in google chrome your thumbnails are about 4px to short, and thus you can see some of the background on the right hand side.
3. work on the social and donation links, they look a bit all over the place at the moment, try using Open Sans for font face?
4. Your top Navigation is HUGE!! make that smaller
5. add some color and flare to the heading tags, eg background-color:blue; padding:10px; width:100px; color:white;
6. footer text needs to be smaller than the normal page size say 10px instead of 15.
7. Maybe add opacity to the white background and only white container the text? this would add depth to the site.
8. You can definitely look into making the site responsive, trust me, once you go mobile first you will never go back

Other than those points, nice work, nice color scheme, good job

Marc

[TheGAME1264]

First off, I'd lose the splash page. Yours is better than most, but it still doesn't tell the user anything about the organization or what it does.

Which leads me to my major issue with the site...it doesn't tell the user anything about the organization or what it does. Someone wrote copy and probably thinks that it does, but as an outsider, I look at it, I see a not-for-profit, but I don't see anything other than a corporate-worded vision and mission statement. Are you a charity? What does it do? How does it work? Who does it benefit? It's really unclear.

Doing this might also explain the links to John Cruz and Jack Johnson Music in the footer. Don't get me wrong...both Ron Roe and I are Jack Johnson fans, so any reference to him will generally get our attention in a positive way (I can't speak for Ron, but I have no idea who John Cruz is). But it's not clear why they're there. Are they involved with the project? Can they put up a video endorsing the charity? That'd be some wicked cool homepage content and give your charity credibility right off the top (especially Johnson).

Mana Maoli*|*K?neh?n?moku Voyaging Academy and Sailing Program | Mana Maoli <-- the "about" submenu gets cut off by the video here. You probably need a z-index on either the video or the "about" submenu to solve it.

It looks nice and it's calming...I just don't get what I'm looking at, that's all.

[Webzarus]

Ron,

sometimes as the "person who knows best", it's OUR job to discourage our clients from doing things that are going to hurt the "overall site"... that being said, it's not a splash page... nor is it a landing page...

A landing page is strictly from "tracking marketing efforts".... a "splash page"... is a page that is used to "display a message"... and them move the user into the site "with or without"... their interaction. What this is... is a barrier page... people don't like the term, because it's negative, but if the page presents no value to the overall site, the message of the site, and it waits for the user to do something... it's a barrier...

On one of the rare occasions I'm actually on my netbook... I click the link... I see 3 boxes... I have to scroll to find the "enter here" link... strike 2.. not only is it a barrier page... it's a barrier page that people have to actually do something before they can continue into the site.

I think you get the message, and you should point your client at this thread since ...

The design, is actually pretty nice.. good use of colors, white space... I rarely see orange used properly... but you pulled it off nicely.

the barrier page...

[TheGAME1264]

Chances are the client's going to see this thread just because of the referral traffic. I doubt we'd be anything lower than the top 5 in their referral logs.

[RDesignista]

Thanks for the input, WDF vets. I have taken note of your comments and will be making small changes to the website, thanks to your perspective. And yes, I will try to make it more clear what exactly the organization is.

As for the "barrier page," well, I don't really know what to say. My drafts did not include it, but the founder of the organization absolutely wanted it. And yes, I can make recommendations to clients, but overall, the client has the final say. One thing I did do though, was I made that page 100% editable - it's just a blank, editable page with an editable background. That means that if they want to change it, they can. Silver lining I suppose?

[TheGAME1264]

If they edit it and make it useful, yes. But what they also need to realize is that they want as many people paying attention to them as possible, and coming back as often as possible. Splash pages are an absolute destroyer when it comes to those goals.

Here's what I'd do...I don't see any site stats on there, and if there aren't any available to you I'd throw Google Analytics on there. GA will work specifically for this purpose because it will tell you two things: the bounce rate (which can be misleading but in this case is useful) and the exit pages. A site such as this should have a bounce rate of I would say 25-35% (give or take). Some people are always going to come and go, but the majority should at least poke around somewhat. I'd suggest that your bounce rate on the site would be around 50-60% overall, with the extra spike being attributed to that home page (which will probably be around 75-80%).

If they see a stat like that and don't learn from it, they're not going to.

[grandascrub]

I am starting to learn it

[TheGAME1264]

Learn what?

[RDesignista]

Thanks again for the tips. I just got around to make some changes this morning. Although this project is already submitted and "final," I went in and make those basic changes. This website will be added to my portfolio, so it's important that I do my best to make changes to things that I might have forgotten or did not consider before (it's like me acting on my warranty clause). Also, thank you to Menotu for recommending Open Sans. I was limited with fonts because of the special Hawaiian glyphs, but open sans has them and it's made the site 100% prettier.

As for the splash page, I'm guessing people hate it. That's what I gather from seeing the 2/5 for accessibility. I'm sure some folks out there went to the website, saw an extra click before going to the home page and had a manic outbreak and simply exploded out of your computer chair. I'm going to be contacting my client and sharing your ideas with him. Webzarus, I especially love your term "barrier page." Mind if I forward it to my client?

In the future, I believe that I have to move on from website design. I'm just not much of a graphics/creative/artist type of person. This project took me a whole lot of thinking and experimenting and I still don't have it down graphically 100% (I have an images in my mind, but I'm not sure how to flesh it out into a website). And this aesthetic planning is all aside from the actual organization and admin UI planning. Will probably be looking to connect with a graphic artist.