Web design

Affiliate WordPress Website

Seattle CARES Mentoring website screenshot

Client: Seattle CARES Mentoring Movement

Scope of Work
Copyediting
Custom Photography
Front-End web development
Performance optimization
Security hardening
Search engine optimization
Visual design

Team: Cipalla Communications, van den Berg Design, Rebecca Sullivan Photography, Scott Marlow

Seattle CARES Mentoring Movement, one of 58 city affiliates, provides school-based mentoring programs for black youth, under a King County Best Starts for Kids grant. The organization needed to quickly re-launch a mobile-friendly website in preparation for a January gala, attended by Major Jenny Durkan and other city of Seattle stakeholders. The new site also had to coordinate with National CARES existing brand identity.

The new nonprofit website, powered by WordPress, was refined over several months. Features include: an event calendar, online mentor forms, rich custom photography & videography, social media & sharing integration, and SSL protection.

Performance Metrics

Performance WordPress Site Benchmark
Google Mobile Speed: 78
Google Desktop Speed 88
Pingdom 77 faster than 64% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index 1,147 median = ~4,493
top 10% = <1,388
YSlow 76 average score = 70
Web Page Size 884 Kb In 2017, average page size = ~2.4 Mb
median page size = ~1.9 Mb
Web Server Requests 58 < 40 – 60 recommended
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Stopping Slow Websites One Nonprofit at a Time

DESC nonprofit website

Client: DESC

Scope of Work
Front-End web development
Performance optimization
Security hardening
Visual design
CMS Training

Team: David Owen Hastings, Scott Marlow

The Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) provides integrated services including housing, emergency shelter, crisis intervention and healthcare to thousands of homeless people.

Our goal: to redesign www.desc.org into a custom, mobile responsive, modern website that showcases the organization’s updated brand identity with bright, bold colors.

Performance Metrics

Performance WordPress Site Benchmark
Google Mobile Speed: 73
Google Desktop Speed 94
Pingdom 81 faster than 87% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index 875 median = ~4,493
top 10% = <1,388
YSlow 84 average score = 70
Web Page Size 340 Kb In 2017, average page size = ~2.4 Mb
median page size = ~1.9 Mb
Web Server Requests 30 < 40 – 60 recommended
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Connecting Nonprofits thru WordPress

Whidbey Community Foundation website

Client: Whidbey Community Foundation

Scope of Work
Content strategy
Custom Photography
Front-End web development
Performance optimization
Security hardening
Visual design

Team: David Owen Hastings, Michael Stadler Photographs, Moore Ink, Scott Marlow

Whidbey Community Foundation, founded in 2016, is a grantmaking public charity that supports Whidbey Island nonprofit organizations through philanthropy, training and capacity building.

More than 750 community foundations operate in urban and rural areas in every state in the United States.

The new community foundation website, powered by WordPress, allows the organization to easily share fundraising, training and other news. A third-party portal by Community Suite provides additional tools for nonprofit listings and donations.

Performance Metrics

Performance WordPress Site Benchmark
Google Mobile Speed: 71
Google Desktop Speed 86
Pingdom 90 faster than 86% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index 1,440 median = ~4,493
top 10% = <1,388
YSlow 82 average score = 70
Web Page Size 526 Kb In 2017, average page size = ~2.4 Mb
median page size = ~1.9 Mb
Web Server Requests 28 < 40 – 60 recommended
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Website Conversion: LiveEdit to WordPress CMS

Pilates studio website

Kristi Galante owns and operates a pilates and yoga studio in Gig Harbor. Her old website was powered by the LiveEdit Platform – a CMS that offers integration with many third party services, including MindBodyOnline, a popular studio service.

Challenges

When we opened the studio in October 2014, we anticipated high client interaction with the website (registration for classes, payments, etc.). We found that potential clients are attracted to the studio by the design of the website, but prefer to do most of their scheduling and transactions in person. LiveEdit offered integration with MindBody, but client logins were often problematic, and we saw little need to continue paying for the API at LiveEdit when the MindBody consumer mode works well for the small number of clients who continue to schedule and pay online. Plus, MindBody has continue development of their mobile app, and more clients are booking through their mobile devices.

From the beginning the template-based design at LiveEdit was cumbersome. Design elements were not flexible, and it was not easy to simply go in and change calls-to-action or pictures. Mobile responsiveness was not satisfactory, and we grew increasingly frustrated with LiveEdit’s technical support. The service was no longer worth the monthly fee, and we decided to upgrade our hosting plan with A2 to handle both of our websites.

The old site suffered from some performance problems. Overall page size was 1.3 Mb, below the 2016 industry median page size of 1.9 Mb, but well above Google’s recommended benchmark of 500 Kb. Additionally, performance testing via Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, and WebPageTest showed the site loading in the bottom 65% tier of sites.

Performance Benchmarks New WordPress Site Old LiveEdit Site
Google Mobile Speed:  69 50
Google Desktop Speed  88 57
Pingdom  88
faster than 82% of tested sites		 76
slower than 64% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index  1,416 6,076
YSlow  80 69
Web Page Size 387 Kb 1.3 Mb
Web Server Requests  25 48

Average web page size in 2017 = ~2.1 Mb
WebPageTest median Speed Index = 4,493; top 10% = < 1,388

Contributing to the performance lag were images not optimized for the web, slow server response, and the lack of header expirations.

Now we have a design that is portable, flexible, easy to update, and cost-efficient to maintain.

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