A fresh new look and feel for the Federal Way Community Center website. This affordable site refresh includes a new brighter color palette with more accessible typography – presented in a playful, youth-inspired visual design.
SiteGround
WordPress. The Most Respected Content Management System in the World.
Did you know WordPress powers 39.5% of all websites (up from powering 35% of sites in 2020)?
| CMS | Market Share (2021) |
|---|---|
| WordPress | 65% |
| Shopify | 6.5% |
| Wix | 3.4% |
| SquareSpace | 3.0% |
| Joomla | 2.5% |
| Drupal | 1.9% |
Lytle Enterprises contacted our team in October 2021 with accessibility, SEO and usability concerns for their aging website. Our goals included:
- To refresh and modernize the website based on the organization’s existing brand identity;
- To improve ease of use – including content management, information architecture, readability, and site maintenance;
- To improve conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level AA – including keyboard-navigable navigation, skip-to-content links, semantic HTML, site search; and high color contrast [> 4.5:1 and > 3.5:1 for large text];
- To improve site performance and security;
- To improve search engine visibility and optimization.
The final benchmark results were impressive …
| Performance Metric | Old website (November 2021) | New Website (April 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Lighthouse: Accessibility | 96/100 | 100/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Best Practices | 67/100 | 100/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Mobile Speed | 59/100 | 86/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Desktop Speed | 71/100 | 98/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Search Engine Optimization | 71/100 | 93/100 |
| WebPageTest Speed Index | 5.845 | 2.116 |
| Total Homepage File Size | 377 Kb (201 Kb Images + 172 Kb Scripts + 13 Kb CSS + 40 Kb Fonts + 19 Kb HTML) | 383 Kb (231 Kb Images + 4 Kb Scripts + 41 Kb CSS + 107 Kb Fonts + 8 Kb HTML) |
| Total Web Server Requests | 25 (3 Images +13 Scripts + 5 CSS + 2 Font + 5 HTML) | 20 (6 Images + 2 Scripts + 8 CSS + 3 Fonts + 1 HTML) |
| Total Homepage Load Time | ~5.8 seconds | ~2.1 seconds |
In 2021, the average page size = ~2.4 Mb and median page size = ~2.1 Mb.
Database-driven websites, like WordPress, are more performance optimized when server requests are < 40 – 60.
Web Design + Development Team
Visual Design: Erik Fadiman
WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow
Accelerated Rebranding for Nonprofit Consulting Firm
A visual design refresh for Alford Group, a minority & woman owned firm that provides fundraising and strategy consulting to nonprofits.
Scope of work for the website refresh included:
a new logo, new typography, updated color palette with a bright orange accent; as well as other layout and style updates to coordinate with the updated brand identity (created by Advocate Creative).
Despite a homepage content slider, Google Lighthouse performance benchmarks remain impressive:
Accessibility: 96/100
Best Practices: 92/100
Mobile Optimization: 78/100
Desktop Optimization: 99/100
SEO: 83/100
Total Page Size: 948 Kb (In 2021, the average page size was ~ 2.4 Mb; median = ~2.1 Mb)
Empowering Nonprofit Clients. Strengthening Nonprofit Communities.
The latest custom-branded, mobile responsive WordPress redesign for Refugee Women’s Alliance. ReWA provides refugees and immigrants in the Puget Sound area with services to help them become independent.
Primary project objectives included:
- To improve ease of use: content management, information architecture, and site maintenance
- To improve page load performance
One of our first tasks was optimizing 10.5 Mb of full size images to load faster. Other performance optimization tasks included:
replacing homepage content sliders/carousels with more effective user interface elements – such as sitewide calls-to-action to drive conversions; reducing Javascript features; consolidating and removing Theme features; replacing theme-integrated features, such as custom event Post Types, with more appropriate Plugins to improve modular integration, long-term stability and maintenance.
Web Design + Development Team
Visual Design Consulting: Erik Fadiman
WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow
What Would Western Wildlife Outreach Do?
Western Wildlife Outreach (WWO) works with partners to provide science-based information to community groups about the ecology, biology, and behavior of grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, and gray wolves. By engaging communities in wildlife and habitat stewardship activities, WWO programs foster an appreciation for large carnivores’ niche in maintaining ecosystem health — providing critical context to environmental recovery efforts happening throughout the Pacific Northwest.
By fall 2021, WWO’s old website was becoming endangered. Page load speed was sluggish, above 5 seconds. Volunteers and new staff could not easily add and update content. Compounded by a clunky user interface that was difficult to navigate, visitors were not engaging with the science-based content.
WWWWOD?
WWO found my nonprofit website marketing services thru 501 Commons. Soon, we embarked to completely rebuild their existing WordPress site, using the native Block Editor to provide a rich, intuitive editing interface, which showcases their rich wildlife photography.
Project objectives included:
- To refresh and modernize the website based on WWO’s existing brand identity;
- To improve ease of use – content management, information architecture, readability, and site maintenance;
- To improve the mobile responsiveness of the site layout for displays from phones to tablets to desktops – including a collapsible navigation menu on mobile;
- To improve compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level AA – including keyboard-navigable navigation, skip-to-content links, semantic HTML, and high color contrast [> 4.5:1 and > 3.5:1 for large text];
- To improve site security and performance.
Overall homepage size decreased 36% from 1.8 to 1.14 Mb, with another 36% decrease in web server requests – resulting in sub 2-3 second page load speeds.
Performance Analysis
| Performance Metric | Old website (November 2021) | New Website (February 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Lighthouse: Accessibility | 90/100 | 98/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Best Practices | 80/100 | 92/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Mobile Speed | 74/100 | 94/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Desktop Speed | 97/100 | 97/100 |
| Google Lighthouse: Search Engine Optimization | 83/100 | 98/100 |
| WebPageTest Speed Index | 1.595 | 2.029 |
| Total Homepage File Size | 1.8 Mb ( 1.3 Mb Images + 110 Kb Scripts + 36 Kb CSS + 12 Kb HTML) | 1.14 Mb (788 Kb Images + 241 Kb Scripts + 69 Kb CSS + 44 Kb Fonts + 22 Kb HTML) |
| Total Web Server Requests | 67 (32 Images + 24 Scripts + 9 CSS + 1 HTML) | 43 (11 Images + 17 Scripts + 11 CSS + 2 Fonts + 2 HTML) |
| Total Homepage Load Time | ~2.4 seconds | ~2 seconds |
In 2021, the average page size = ~2.4 Mb and median page size = ~2.1 Mb.
Database-driven websites, like WordPress, are more performance optimized when server requests are < 40 – 60.
Web Design + Development Team
Visual Design: Erik Fadiman
WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow
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