On the night when all the world rang in the New Year, PRI launched our new, completely redesigned website.
PRI disseminates reliable research and educational audiotapes, videos, brochures, bi-monthly publications, and up-to-date weekly news briefings accessible through email or regular mail. Everyday we are looking for ways to meet a wider audience. One unsurpassed method is through the Internet. PRI receives an estimated 4,100 visits per week to our present site. That means we are able to address people twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week — a perpetual conference for information exchange. And when the PRI office is closed for the evening, our materials continue to be accessed across the world educating and inspiring people to advance a culture that is pro-natal and pro-family. “Rapid information exchange is the unique characteristic of the Internet, and we want to continue to take full advantage of that,” says Steve Mosher, the president of PRI. “The generosity of our supporters has enabled us to launch a completely redesigned website.”
New Features
What new features will you see when you visit the updated site? First you will notice the change of the design. PRI consulted Veraprise, Inc., a full service Internet solutions firm located in Front Royal, Virginia, who selected restful photo images of nature and peoples from varying cultures and enveloped them in a warm and calming green background. “Color has a way of subconsciously affecting the person. We chose the colors and the overall design to inspire people to linger at the site,” says Michael Schmiedicke, Creative Director at Veraprise. “PRI’s mission objective is research and education, so we created an atmosphere like a comfortable reading room or library that invites the reader to relax and browse the virtual bookshelves.”
Easier Navigation
The next improvement you will find on the site is easier navigation. You will spend less time finding what you are looking for. We have reorganized how information can be accessed, and viewers will be able to more easily identify and download their topic of interest. “Our present site was designed in the nineties. Large companies and organizations were discovering the possibilities of the super information highway. Though these sites had structure, the viewer was really the one who influenced a need for improvement in the way a site was organized. If it took too long for a viewer to find what he was looking for or if a site was so laden with graphics that would add time to downloading, the viewer would quickly exit and look elsewhere. When one is talking about e-commerce (or the exchange of money for goods) one can see that a site’s organization and easy accessibility could mean a loss of revenue over a short period of time,” says Sean Clowes, a PRI staffer working on the site update. “Website development has advanced so drastically in the past twelve years. It is like the passing of two decades in the technology and design world.”
Fewer Clicks, Less Scrolling
Most major companies and even small organizations have changed their web layout one or even a number of times, to accommodate the growing needs of web users and to increase traffic to their websites. The web viewer in this millennium demands quick downloading and easy navigation. Savvy surfers want to find what they are looking for with fewer clicks and less scrolling or else they’ll move on to the next site.
Considering this for the upgraded site, PRI requested that Veraprise install a key word search function, allowing the user to type and entry, say, “China,” and the site search engine would locate all available PRI materials on that particular topic. “This is not a recent innovation to web design. PRI is joining the ranks with other major organizations whose sites offer this feature for the convenience of the viewer,” says Clowes.
A feature that may not be apparent to the viewer but one that makes a world of a difference to PRI’s modest budget, is what Veraprise calls the “Content Management System (CMS).” Matthew Gelis, Director of Site Development at Veraprise, recommended the CMS to PRI, recognizing the financial constraints of a non-profit 50l(c)3 organization. “With the CMS, any staffer with limited knowledge of building a website can add or make changes to the site and avoid the high costs of out-sourcing this type of work to web content managers. Really, by designing such a system Veraprise is, in a sense, running the risk of putting itself out of work. However, we developed the CMS for the convenience of our clients.”
More Current Information
While heavily relying on the viewer to give us feedback on how the site is serving their needs, changes of any size can be made in-house, even changes that require the restructuring of an entire section in order to better facilitate our objective of easily accessible information. Besides streamlined navigation and logical organization, we will be able to keep our information current encouraging our viewers to return day after day for the latest updates. Says Mosher, “We want them always referring to us first as the experts on international population issues.”
So, on New Year’s morning start your day with a cup of coffee and a human rights resolution by visiting www.pop.org.
Marie Smith is the coordinator for International affairs and conferences. She also spearheaded the organization and launch of our new website.
