Ever wonder how other organizations run their web projects so successfully? Learn through Talance Client Spotlights, where you can connect with peers to pick up inspiration and proven tips you can apply to your website or online course.

Liz Engelman

Liz Engelman’s greatest enemy is the unexamined question. As a dramaturg, her job is to identify the questions a play asks, and the questions to ask of the play. She’s a bit like the confusion police; identifying the difference from good and bad confusion –anything from intentions, to anachronisms to logical gaffes. With her help, a play can be closer to the playwright’s initial vision. In short, she helps make plays become their best selves. For anyone who’s thinking, “There’s no part of my life that wouldn’t benefit from a little dramaturgy,” have hope. You can apply to Tofte Lake Center, a nonprofit creative retreat that looks a little more like your most idyllic summer camp fantasy in Ely, Minn. TLC’s purpose is to apply the principles of dramaturgy to all artistic pursuits. Read on for more about how a very in-person organization builds community online.

How does one become a dramaturg?

I first heard about dramaturgy when I was a junior in high school, when I was taking a class called Madness in Literature. My teacher said, “Liz, you should be a dramaturg,” and I said, “Dramawhat?” She replied that I had the ability to look at the big picture and relate it to the specific. And vice versa. And I thought, “That’s cool, but how is that a job?”

Later, when I concentrated in theater at Brown, my professor suggested that I create an independent study in dramaturgy. I thought, “Okay, two different people are telling me to do this; I better listen…” So I did.

How did that evolve into Tofte Lake Center?

After 20 years of working as a dramaturg, I began to realize that there are ways of telling stories other than through the theatre. Each media has its own narrative, its own way to tell a story. I wanted to create and environment for these different types of stories to emerge. Often we hear about starving artists who live miserably in a garret somewhere creating their life’s work, and I thought there had to be a way to live as an artist without a struggle – to be nurtured and inspired and surrounded by beauty in the process. So I did what a dramaturg does: articulate the intention, build the story, take yourself seriously… and the dream starts to form.

What kinds of artists visit the center?

I like to say creative thinkers rather than only artists, as many creative people don’t identify as artists. However, most people who come are: they are playwrights and writers of all genres, (novelists and poets), musicians, visual artists, dancers and choreographers. The Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theatre Company has been in residence each of our 4 years, and have become a community face for the center. Our artists have come from all over the country (and Australia!) for their weeklong residencies, and we have been fortunate to receive funding from the Jerome Foundation to support our emerging artists program for artists who reside in either Minnesota or New York.

How do you represent a decidedly in-person creative retreat in the online world?

At first it was hard to think of how to translate an experience that’s very location-based onto a screen. Then I started thinking about how to communicate TLC’s values–conversation, innovation, community, creativity, sun and water. When I thought about how to share the impulses of and behind TLC’s story, the role of the website became clearer.

The website has become a way of maintaining our off-campus community. The site has been a way of deepening and broadening it, to partner with artists and make connections, using the site as a conduit for conversation. I used to think of a website as a static thing. I thought of our old website as an online brochure. Now it’s malleable, evolving — a way to tell our story.

I’ve found images as a way of building partnerships and interest, too. One of the artists whose images we included in our Flickr gallery thanked me for sharing his work. Letting people know I could link to their profile was a major way of building traffic to the site. The partnering opportunities have been more helpful than I’d imagined. I want to continue to find ways to use more photos as an attractor to the site.

A collaborative online gallery of Tofte Lake Center artists

What are some of the most helpful parts of your website?

Putting our applications online has been most helpful. I was getting submissions via e-mail before, and I would have to send each e-mailed application to our review panel, one at a time as I received them, and they had the most difficult task of having to keep track a hundred incoming individual applications. An applicant might resend something, and the panelist might forget where they put it, and worry that something got lost. It was thus immensely time intensive on my part. Now applicants can submit online, and it’s all stored on the website. I heard from someone who applied last year who was so happy to see that the application was now online. It was a mature professional step up.

Tofte Lake Center's online application for artists

What did you learn through a major website redesign process?

I was not expecting to learn as much as I did. I had been thinking more about the result than the process. It took longer than I thought, and this turned out to be extremely informative. The process was completely dramaturgical: identifying what I was trying to do and the best ways to structure and say it. Working on a website is a continual process. The story keeps evolving.

I also learned that just because another organization used their website in a particular way, it doesn’t necessarily apply to mine. They made certain choices in how to tell their story, but that’s not my story. Realizing that: that’s what a dramaturg does.

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Post tags: artist retreat, community, dramaturg, flickr, liz Engelman, nonprofit, spotlight, tofte lake center, traffic, web design

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The devil, they say, is in the details. Anyone who’s planned a considerable undertaking–be it a new kitchen or strategy for your organization–knows that the beast can rear its ugly head when you haven’t thought the project through well enough.

Want a Painless Website? Get Planning

[Image: Flickr user opensourceway]

Before you begin to think about selecting a technology partner for your new website redesign, you should do a little preliminary planning so you know what to look for when it comes time to choose. Now would also be a good time to do an internal needs assessment, so get your team involved to help.

Start with having the answers to these questions handy, and you’ll be glad you did when it comes time to start shopping for a web designer or put together an RFP (request for proposal).

1. When do you want to launch?
2. Do you already have a budget established? If your funds don’t meet your aspirations, can you break the project into phases?
3. What is the main goal for the new website or redesign (update the design, provide a better user experience, target a different audience, etc.)?
4. What’s the site’s concept? In other words, why does it exist?
5. Who is a typical person who might use the website? There might be more than one.
6. What’s the main thing people need to do on your website (search for information, sign up for something, make donations)?
7. What’s your functionality wish list for the new site (calendar, RSS, Twitter feed, Facebook Like button, etc.)?
8. What are some other sites you like, and why?

If you’ve got the answers to these questions, then you’ll be able to answer questions from your web development partner, and you’ll be in a better position to make a decision. Also check A Comprehensive Website Planning Guide from Smashing Magazine for an even more in-depth look into planning successful websites.

Converting to a CMS Website Free Guide

Need a little nudge when it comes to transferring your old website to a new CMS-based website like Drupal? Request a free copy of our website redesigning handbook that offers more tips, as well as templates and examples to take the pain out of planning.

Request your copy now.

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Post tags: planning, smashing magazine, web design, workflow

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Thinking of embarking on a website redesign? The smartest place to start is by asking the people who use the site what they want. Now is a perfect time to embark on a new project, while you’ve got spring cleaning on the brain. Check out our series on how to spring clean your website for a fresh start.

Here are four tests and surveys you should conduct before you launch new project.

User Needs Survey

Set up a questionnaire survey to find out what your audience thinks is most important about your website. Take their comments into consideration for your needs assessment process. What those survey questions will be largely depend on your own organization’s directives. But a question like this might help you get started.

Please rate the value of each of these features, with 1 being extremely important and 4 being extremely unimportant.

• Ability to log on to access premium material
• A blog
• Video clips that demonstrate how we work

You can request a free quick and easy survey template if you don’t feel like writing your own. Make sure to leave a comments space so people can add features they think might be valuable. This is also a good time to evaluate some of your current processes, like asking people how long it took them to receive feedback or how easy it is to make a donation or pay for an item.

Web Content Test

Having an appealing design is one thing, but having readable copy is another. (Be honest: how much jargon are you using?). The web design industry magazine A List Apart puts it this way:

Whether the purpose of your site is to convince people to do something, to buy something, or simply to inform, testing only whether they can find information or complete transactions is a missed opportunity: Is the content appropriate for the audience? Can they read and understand what you’ve written?

ALA gives helpful instructions on how to test the effectiveness of your content. Examples: try some readability software like Added Bytes, Juicy Studio, and Edit Central (or even Microsoft Word’s built-in Flesch Reading Ease check), or host a moderated reading test.

Accessibility Review

A website is only useful if everyone can use it. Paying attention to accessibility is good practice for all organizations–especially since good accessibility equals good SEO–and it’s a must if you’re a government agency. You can start with these Essential Tips for Making Websites Accessible, and then you might begin a “preliminary review.”

The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative provides instructions for conducting a preliminary review of your website’s accessibility. In short, they recommend selecting a representative sampling of high profile pages (e.g., the welcome page) and those with different layouts and functionality, and testing just a few of those to see how well you’re measuring up.

SEO Audit

Making your website more friendly to search engines is a large but critical undertaking. The good news is any improvement you make is a good one. Schedule a search engine optimization (SEO) audit of your website with a few key goals in mind:

• Are you using heading tags correctly?
• Do you have a sitemap?
• Is your content skimpy?

Check out the 9-Point SEO Checklist for more tips.

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Post tags: a list apart, accessibility, Content, section 508, seo, survey, usability, w3c

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Ever wonder how other organizations run their web projects so successfully? Learn through Talance Client Spotlights, where you can connect with peers to pick up inspiration and proven tips you can apply to your website or online course.

Caitlyn Slowe

Caitlyn Slowe is a master juggler. She’s the go-to person to manage what’s published and when on the Health Imperatives website, a health agency in Brockton, Mass. As her organization has discovered, the items that appear on the site receive a huge boost in traffic, so hers is a key position. Here’s how she manages the homepage and about 20 smaller sites on top of her other job duties. Hint: organization really matters.

What’s your title, and how does that fit in with managing the website?

I’m the Manager of Special Projects for Health Imperatives, and one of the “projects” that my title refers to is our new website. Health Imperatives has about 40 different program sites ranging from family planning programs to a domestic violence shelter to GLBT youth services and so on.

My title was created last year when we were preparing for the launch of the new website. In addition to managing the website, I still continue to do my previous responsibilities like grant writing, event coordination, budget tracking, report writing, etc., for several Health Imperatives programs.

What areas of the site are you primarily responsible for?

I manage all of the main page content for www.healthimperatives.org and about half of the program sub-sites (some programs manage their own). On the main page, I find and post content for “In the News,” create the Slides for the slideshow (and usually the pages that they link to) and post program updates under “Announcements.”

I also manage all of the main Health Imperatives social media sites, which currently include Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

How do you keep up on learning website manager skills?

I love NTEN’s (Nonprofit Technology Network) blogs and webinars on web design and management, and Mashable also has some excellent articles and tips on managing websites and social media. The Nonprofit Facebook Guy has great info geared specifically toward nonprofits. I’m fairly new to web management, so I basically try to read anything I can find relating to nonprofit web design or social media!

What does your day-to-day strategy look like for keeping the site updated?

One of the challenges I have with managing the website is that it is not my only job responsibility, so to make it more manageable for myself, I create a calendar for each month and map out how/when I’ll update the three sections of the main page (News, Slides, and Announcements).

A snapshot of Slowe's planning calendar

I seek out and write the News blurbs and design the Slides in advance so that I can spend a minimal amount of time dropping them onto the site when their day comes up on the calendar. It’s worked well so far!

I try to update at least two different main page sections per week to keep the info fresh, and I leave each item up for at least one-two weeks (unless it is time-sensitive) so frequent site visitors will see as much new content as possible.

For social media, I rely heavily on HootSuite to help me keep up to date. I aim to do at least one tweet per day, and I limit Facebook to three posts per week (usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday). HootSuite allows me to schedule a week or more worth of Twitter and Facebook updates in advance, which is a huge time-saver!

Hootsuite is a huge timesaver for Twitter campaigns

It’s been half a year since the new site launched. What trends do you see in usage?

We have seen an exciting increase in traffic to our website since the new page launched, and it seems that people are enjoying the new format. Google Analytics is a great tool to show results in real numbers – for instance:

In 2011 between 1/29-2/28 we saw 1,580 (unique) visitors

In 2012 during that same time month-long period we’ve had 4,123 (unique) visitors (yay!)

We’re also seeing an increase in new users (vs. returning users), which tells us that our website is reaching a broader audience than it has in the past.

We’re finding that events/trainings that are advertised on our main page slideshow are receiving drastic increases in attendance. For example, a recent recurring training saw a 150% increase in registration after we advertised it on the main page slideshow. Very exciting to see these results, and we’ll definitely continue to advertise this way!

What’s the most useful part of the site?

I’d say that the slideshow has been the most useful part of the site, because it’s the first thing visitors see and can help us direct them to certain program sub-sites that otherwise may not have gotten as much exposure.

The Shopping Cart has also been a very useful tool, as it allows people to make donations to specific programs and also lets them register for trainings or events online, which is definitely the preferred method for our web-savvy visitors!

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Post tags: facebook, health imperatives, Hootsuite, linkedin, mashable, nonprofit, nonprofit facebook guy, nten, project management, social media, spotlight, traffic, twitter, Web strategy

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These are the things I wish clients would ask when they’re looking to start a new project. You can use this as a punch list of questions to ask a web designer, web development agency or someone to develop an online course:

1. Do you have any case studies?

Case studies are a really great way to see what an Internet developer or graphic designer has done for another client. Good ones take you through the problem, solution and introduce the technology. We’re careful to create case studies that are framed to show how work we’ve done for one client is applicable to many. People can find case studies on our website, but they don’t ask for them enough or ask for ones that are specific to the work they need.

2. Do you have references?

It’s a little odd how many people don’t ask me for references. They should, because talking to someone we’ve actually done work for is invaluable. An outside perspective is exactly what someone hiring a designer should be looking for, too.

3. How does your process work?

I’ve worked on enough projects to know how valuable it is to have a capable person managing the process. You’re not only hiring someone who knows about the technology and design, but who also knows about how to manage a project, how to schedule milestones, and make sure deadlines are met.

4. How did you get into the web design industry?

This is an easy question that will give you an idea of how passionate a person feels about the work they do. It will also give you an idea of the values of the web developer and what kinds of hidden skills they bring to their cache of talent. It always sparks a good conversation, and anything that opens up conversation in an exploratory call helps.

Notice that nowhere on this list is, “How much will this cost?” Everybody has a budget, but without preliminary research into what a client needs, it’s virtually impossible to give a price estimate. Plus, if you’re working on a tight budget, a good development agency can help figure out how to solve problems you have rather than cut features you can’t afford. Plus, value is not the same thing as cheap. With interactive design, you get what you pay for.

Anything I missed? If there are other questions you’ve found useful in initial conversations with web designers, add them in the comments below.

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Post tags: budget, design, project management, roi, web development

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Lina Arsenault

[Silicon Valley marketing executive Lina Arseneault is our guest writer today, offering perspective on generational diversity in marketing, including your web strategy.]

By Lina Arseneault

Embrace generational diversity

Are you a for-profit organization looking for people who will help make more money than they will cost the business? Are you a nonprofit employer seeking employees with passion for the cause you serve? Does your workplace use the full breadth of talent available to it? Are you attracting the right candidates?

The key to making the most out of these challenges lies in embracing generational diversity. It will foster a culture of flexibility and collaboration in which everyone is responsible for the high quality and timeliness of the final product.

Fuse: Making Sense of the New Cogenerational Workplace by Jim Finkelstein with Mary Gavin, includes a bonus chapter from Ayelet Baron.

I love to read! A few weeks ago, I went to visit my parents in Northern Canada. Not only was I looking forward to spending time with them but I was also looking forward to the long plane ride from San Francisco so I could indulge in uninterrupted reading time. For this trip, I selected a few books including “Fuse: Making Sense of the New Cogenerational Workplace“. My colleague and friend Ayelet Baron, VP Strategy for Cisco Canada, contributed a bonus chapter to the book and I wanted to check it out.

Fuse isn’t just another generations book. It’s a thought provoking, entertaining and useful read that will have you questioning your beliefs about how to get the most out of generational diversity. It shows you how to weave together the experience of Boomers and the techno-smarts of Millennials in ways that benefit you and your organization. Authors Jim Finkelstein and Mary Gavin suggest that common points of fusion exist in all of us.

Pop quiz

Find out if your organization is cogenerationally savvy, take the Fuse quiz.

There are vast differences between employees fresh out of school and their more seasoned counterparts. As a team, working in more flexible ways gives you a chance to leverage the best qualities of each generation. That means young people can learn how to be professionals at the same time that older or less knowledgeable team members can come up to speed on their technological skills.

To find out whether your organization is cogenerationally savvy, take the Fuse quiz. Your results might surprise you.

The right kind of job descriptions

Are you attracting the right candidates? How much time and effort do you put in crafting the right job description? Does it have the correct tone?

Resist the temptation to save time by recycling a generic job description. Instead, you should consider an extra step. The Fuse authors explain the importance of tone and positioning in job descriptions.

A Millennial won’t read past the first sentence of a job description unless it hooks her. If the first line doesn’t explain why the organization is great and how it’s making a difference in the community, city, county, state, country, world, or universe, chances are the Millennial won’t bother applying.

Contrast that with the old approach of leading with the laundry list of all the job responsibilities. It might be worth taking the time to audit your job description template to ensure that you include the emotional hook in that key first sentence. In doing so, you’ll have a better chance of enticing high potential candidates to read beyond the first sentence. Consider emphasizing employees, community, and environment. Other considerations (as long as it’s true) are the promise of meaningful work and access to technology.

Reverse mentoring

Does your organization have a reverse mentoring program?

Reverse mentoring was first popularized by former GE Chairman Jack Welsh and it’s been around for about a decade. It’s a relatively new type of mentoring where the traditional roles are reversed and junior employees take on the role of teacher to their more experienced co-workers. The Millennials are coming into the workforce with networking and global-mindedness skills from which older generations can learn. In addition, Millennials are technology natives who can drive a role reversal by mentoring technology-challenged Boomers.

Read about how Nitin Kawale, President of Cisco Canada benefits from reverse mentoring.

If you don’t have a program in place, the good news is that reverse or reciprocal mentoring can take place within existing company mentoring programs. What you’re looking to do is match up employees of different generations and encourage them to meet on a regular basis to exchange ideas. Mix and match: don’t restrict mentoring relationships to people of the same gender or same fields. There so much to learn from people who are different from ourselves.

Cogenerational communication

How frequently do you communicate with your team and how do you do it?

Millennials expect management communication to be:

• Positive
• Respectful
• Motivational
• Electronic
• In person, if the message is really important
• Timely

From Fuse on “How Millennials view communication”:

There is no need to take time to listen to a voice-mail when you see a number on your smartphone – just hit redial.

Gaming = entertainment + work

Millennials are fast becoming an influential factor in the workplace and an increasingly important part of its future. They grew up with computers and cell phones the way Boomers and Gen Xers grew up with typewriters and corded telephones. Boomers see technology as a tool, or even a toy, while younger workers see it as an extension of themselves. Millennials see themselves as “technology natives,” sensible multitaskers who get a lot done. Most of them mix entertainment and work.

The Kids Are Alright: How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, is an excellent reference on the impact of video games on young people. The authors argue that gamers collect valuable knowledge from their entertainment and that they’re poised to use that knowledge to transform the workplace.

Move over Stephen Covey, these are the 7 Habits of Highly Typical Gamers:

1. Everyone Can Succeed

Gamers grow up in a world where literally everyone can succeed at just about anything. By working hard enough (and long enough), it is possible for every player to win these games.

2. You Gotta Play the Odds

This generation grows up playing games of chance. There has been a probability algorithm built into almost every game they’ve played.

3. Learn From the Team, Not the Coach

Whenever you can, resist the urge to dint; often you “teach” better by introducing a group of gamers to a problem and then just getting out of the way.

4. Kill Bosses: Trust Strategy Guides

Share hand-won knowledge. Position yourself as a fellow player who has been there and can offer some strategy tips, not as a boss.

5. Watch the Map

Gamers count on the “meta-map” that shows where they are in relation to other players, goals, obstacles, and resources.

6. Can’t See It; Ignore It

The action is all on the surface. This generation can become confused, baffles, even furious when thwarted by unseen forces in organizations.

7. Demand the Right Team

Good gamers flee places where there aren’t enough high-quality players. They do the same in other parts of life as well.

Why not help the gamers you care about find teams that match their level — and their passion for a particular challenge — and you’ll be amazed at what they can do.

Are you beginning to see how you can make Millennials’ habits work for you and for the gamification of the business (it will happen whether you like it or not)? Respect is the starting point of any relationship. All it takes is the genuine desire to learn from each other.

You Fuse, You Win!

It’s not always easy to get along… That’s because we all see things differently. And different is not bad! In fact, it can be very good! Successful businesses cultivate new and innovative ideas. From those ideas come ways to expand the business by offering new services, working more efficiently, and marketing more effectively.

As a team, working in new and more flexible way gives us a chance to leverage the best qualities of each generation. That means young people can learn how to be professionals at the same time that older or less knowledgeable team members can come up to speed on their technological skills.

You fuse, you win!

• Benefit from the best qualities of each generation
• Give young people the opportunity to learn how to be professionals as well as business leaders
• Let young people to teach others how to use technology more effectively
• Use the full dimension of available talent

Fuse: Making Sense of the New Cogenerational Workplace is a great read. I especially like the call-out features of the book. These include “fuse tips” – helpful suggestions for connection opportunities and “fusions” – bulleted list summaries that conclude every chapter.

A fused workplace can provide tremendous benefits in terms of improved morale, outside-the-box thinking, greater teamwork, and an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect. In such an environment, there is less focus on the specific schedule of when or where the work is accomplished. The benefit to the business is a more nimble and efficient organization with increased capacity to effectively meet client needs.

Use ALL your talent

Are you creating a workplace that uses the full dimension of talent available to it? Remember that “you snooze, you lose” and “you fuse, you win”.

If you happen to be on a long flight, you might enjoy reading Drive and A Whole New World by Daniel H. Pink.

About the author

Lina Arseneault is Millennial at heart. Follow her on Twitter, read her blog.

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Post tags: Fuse, generations, guest post, Jim Finkelstein, Lina Arseneault, marketing

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Hey, I get it. You’re a dedicated board member and you are invested all the way from your hair follicles to your bunions in your nonprofit organization’s mission. You want everyone to know how awesome your nonprofit is. For whatever reason, what comes naturally is to emblazon your mission statement everywhere you can: annual reports, brochures and, in a streak of misinformed enthusiasm, your website homepage.

Oh, no. No, no. You are sorely mistaken there. Your mission statement does not belong on your homepage. I would argue that thing shouldn’t be within throwing distance of your website. Your site is not a place where you need to talk about how you’re meeting your organizational vision. In fact, the words “vision,” “mission statement” and “statement of purpose” have no business anywhere on your website.

Why? Because nobody cares. I’m not trying to be mean here, there’s just no other way to say it. I guarantee the people you’re serving care more about what you’re doing for them than looking at your gobbledygook mission statement.

I’ll tell you now that no pregnant teen, no neglected pet, no activist, congregant, health worker, educator, mentor, counselor or any other type online audience member visiting a nonprofit’s website ever needs to know the mission statement. Not one!

I’m writing to you directly, dear board member, because you’re the unseen reverser of many a good decision about website homepages. I know this because in my work at a web development firm, I lead our clients through a painstaking process of identifying the most important information for the homepage. We look for something that will keep them there longer than 10 seconds. Too often a board member steps in during final approval to insist on the mission statement going front and center. So back we step.

Listen, I’m not a board member. I don’t know what goes on behind doors when choosing a mission statement. It could be a mixed martial arts battle over which words to choose (“innovation” or “enrich”? “Potential” or “realize”?). You might have bloody lips and bruises that prove your mix of bizpeak is the best. Respect, man. That’s got to be tough.

Still, though. It doesn’t change that no one cares.

So for pity’s sake, pretty please stop insisting your mission statement appears anywhere on your website homepage.

Respectfully yours,

Frustrated web developers everywhere

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Post tags: Content, copy, marketing, mission statement, writing

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If there’s one takeaway from 2011, it’s that the economy is haywire and technology is evolving faster than an oiled bullet. In that kind of nutty atmosphere, it can be a challenge to predict what will happen to web-based technology in the coming months.

What does 2012 hold for nonprofit websites?

We do see a few trends emerging for the next year, however. Here are our predictions for 2012 web trends. Take note for when you next talk to your web design firm about and also pay attention to so you can to succeed in your NGO or company.

1. More design for mobile devices.

Look around you. What’s in the hands of the people surrounding you, including your own? An iPad or iPhone? Nook? Kindle? Tablet? Blackberry? Everybody’s using some kind of handheld device. While corporate websites have been mobile-compliant for years, nonprofits will finally start to catch up. Want to peer into the future of mobile design? Read Mobile Web Design Trends and Best Practices.

2. App-lification of websites.

All those people with mobile devices are getting used to responsive design that they can manipulate with their fingers. Move over “point and click,” and make way for “touch and swipe.” People are beginning to expect interactive design with websites, so expect to see websites look and behave more like they came from the app store.

3. Websites focused on user experience.

Since people are spending so much time with their heads bowed over their handheld devices, they also expect to understand what to do with an app without having to guess. This means websites will be built with careful attention to user experience design (UX), in other words, built with humans in mind. Nonprofit leaders might finally understand that the less people have to think about a website, the more likely they’ll donate, sign petitions, volunteer or otherwise participate. Finally!

4. Less Flash.

We’ve long believed Flash to be big and clunky plug-in, with way too many distracting splash screens and blank spaces on the iPad. There are other technologies out there that make web movies and play on a host of devices, so expect to see more of these letters in the alphabet soup: AJAX, CSS3 and HTML 5.

5. Move to online donations.

Smart charities are already asking for money online with little more than a click. Many smaller nonprofits have been slow to relinquish check-cashing for ecommerce web design. We see some of that fear waning, and expect more nonprofits that don’t allow online donations to begin earning some electronic cash.

What do you think will be trending in 2012? Give your vote for one of these five in the comments below or tell us what you think we’ll see in the future.

[Image: Flickr user rjrgmc28]

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Post tags: design, e-commerce functionality, fundraising, navigation, nonprofit, trends

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We spend all year coming up with advice and insight into how you can run a better website, hold a more effective online training program. Here are the top 12 most useful, entertaining and indispensable we covered over the last year.

(Make sure you don’t miss any of the good stuff coming up in 2012 – and yes, we’ve got a good year planed so far. Sign up for updates by RSS feed or by e-mail using the box to the right.)

Definitive Website Pre-Launch Checklist

Ready to launch a new site? Run through this before you flip the switch.

4 Risk Management Steps That Could Save You

Things go wrong with websites. Expect the unexpected.

Welcome to Our Website! (Except for You)

We know you’d never intentionally close your website to anyone, but without appropriate accessibility, that might be just what you’re doing.

Save Your Sanity AND Get the Logo You Love (Yes, You Can!)

You can get through an image rebranding without rehashing past mistakes or subjecting yourself to the pain of collaboration. Here’s how.

John Rochford Talks About Accessibility

John Rochford, Director of Technology at New England INDEX a project of UMass Medical School, is one of those people who takes accessibility seriously and makes websites better for everyone.

10 Ways to Be a Jackass in Online Discussions

Please apply the following rules to discussion boards, comments entries, and Facebook and Twitter postings if you wish to raise collective blood pressure.

Digesting All That Alphabet Soup

Here are a few tips on dealing with letter overload online.

20 Free Icon Sets for Non-Profits

The quickest shortcut to making your website look polished is to use icons. These pictures are nice and free.

Guest Post: Five Musts for Pictures That Pop

Morgan Ione Yeager shares some simple tricks to capture better images and using images online.

Reader Question: How Do I Get Feedback on My New Website?

A reader wants to know how to get honest feedback from her website visitors.

What Is the Coolest E-learning Video You Have Seen Online?

A few great examples.

Frankenspeak Contest with the Content Rules team

Share the words and phrases that you’d like to ban from marketing, sales, corporate communications, business schools, blogs and boardrooms, and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Content Rules, by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.

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Post tags: Web strategy

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QuickBooks just did something smart. They asked us what we thought of their QuickBooks Online Plus service in a survey. Since we’re a bunch of technologists who think deeply about how to make processes smoother, we told them, in detail.

Asking wasn’t the smartest part about what they did, though. Following up was. One of their software developers scheduled a phone call with us, and we all got on the phone for 20 minutes – their tech team and ours – and hashed out some really good ideas for making the service better.

The benefit for them? Good ideas that appeal to clients, expressed intelligently.

The benefit for us? The promise of better service with our online accounting system.

When was the last time you asked the people you serve what they think? Are they learning everything they can? Are they finding what they need on your website? If you ask, you might find some excellent ideas for improvement. Think of sending a website user survey as a first step. We also wrote about this last month when a reader asked us the question How Do I Get Feedback on My New Website?

Your Turn

While we’re talking about the benefits of feedback, take a minute to tell us what you think of our newsletter. You might even win a gift certificate. You lucky dog, you.

© Talance for Talance Blog, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Quickbooks, survey

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