Website refresh

Background

'Website refresh' is a project underway since early 2023.

The aims are twofold:

1. To resolve existing navigation and maintenance issues with the current site, and
2. Update structurally to better reflect development of the Wellbeing model and other changes in K'aute service delivery.

Current state

The current live site is at https://www.kautepasifika.co.nz/.

Issues

Issues that have been formally identified with this site are:

1. Focus on video content is welcoming, but makes quick navigation hard or confusing
2. Actual content is superficial
3. Site is hard to update/change as necessary
4. Site does not allow effective dissemination of news, or marketing info
5. Site uses a CMS which is not widely used and harder to support, extend and customise
6. Service content is contract-focused and may not be optimal for our community seeking assistance
7. Lack of ability to properly integrate other services that may be useful - for example, Careers/Job ads, ELC and enrolment, Primary care and MyIndici/enrolment, Healthpoint, etc.

Formal design work

K'aute have worked with Bettle, in drafting a new website design. This has gone through several iterations, and the most recent draft for approval can be found here.

A stocktake/review session on 24/7/2024 revealed that this draft hadn't yet been shared widely with stakeholders, and there was a feeling that it needed substantial rework.

This session ended with an agreement to capture the below key points, and to draft a test/wireframe for further review and feedback:

1. Too much focus on contracts
2. Wrong focus on 'facilities' vs services
3. Does not reflect Wellbeing model and K'aute's future aspirations around service design and delivery
4. Does not have an appropriate focus on "how can we help you?"
5. Does not quickly guide people through to accessing relevant information or services
6. Some key components missing (donation and careers functionality, as well as stories/case studies, for example).

Test sites

In response to above feedback session, K'aute proposed to develop basic test site versions internally, which can then be used for further feedback and review. The idea being that stakeholders can actually 'touch and feel' as opposed to working with draft design documents, and relying on external designers to move us forward.

Test site is running on a t2.micro instance in K'aute AWS account. Domain name and DNS managed via Route 53. SSL managed via Certbot.

v0.1

First revised draft of site available at v0.1 URL https://site.kautepasifika.com/.

Feedback session occurred on 11/11/2024.

Feedback summary:

• Need 'Events' functionality, also permitting registration/signup (and possibly reminder notifications).
• Specific Fale booking capability (currently only available as an interim solution at https://kautepasifika.co.nz/services/village-fale/booking-the-fale/).
• News items should be tagged so users can refine what they see.
• 'Facilities' should be changed to show 'Our Village', and simply present the K'aute Village with relevant information - possibly graphically.
• ELC currently is a separate site, but this should be incorporated somehow into new version The ELC 'micro-site' should include broader content commonly found on brochure sites, such as 'About us', 'Services', etc.
• Need a place for 'Case Studies' or success stories separately to 'New and events'.
• Need a process to initiate a complaint, or provide feedback.
• 'Contact' form has much lower friction for users than the current referral process. However, there may be a corresponding Reception workload in interpreting and actioning any requests. Need to consider this tension in more detail.
• Useful to have 'donation' capability, but this should not be prominent.
• 'Services' needs to be reconsidered:
  • There should be minimal jargon
  • Focus on practical ways we can help families, using plain language.
  • Keep away from too much detail, and encourage users to get in touch.
  • Consider a structure which follows a 'life course' model instead.