The evolution of a web presence — part 1

Working at the Michigan Education Association (MEA) has brought many opportunities for me to enhance my technical and creative skills—from designing print media, to multimedia and video/DVD production, A/V setup and coordination, and now to web development and Internet marketing (LinkedIn). This past year, I took on the task of designing and developing MEA’s new Web site.

Before going into that process, I would like to illustrate where MEA’s web presence was to where it is at now and then continue on this blog to explore what is and isn’t working for MEA’s site and in their MEAOnline social media presence.

Approximately in the Summer of 2005, I helped design the look of the Web site. At that time, one of the biggest challenges was content management. There were thousands of pages that my colleagues needed to go through along with determining what navigation was necessary. I will keep it simple here and say that this was no small task. Not only was this a major organizational undertaking, but there were many association considerations to incorporate. This site was also the first time Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were used instead of tables. The Web Administrator, at the time, created the templates and did the coding based on my design mock-ups.

So it began with needing a ‘portal’ to determine which audience you were:

Once you clicked a link, let’s say “For Members”, then you went to that home page. All of the sub pages were coded to automatically put the section name in the black area above the navigation. That way people would know where they were on the site. This is the Members home page:

This is the Press Room: