The previous website was developed in 2010 on Drupal 6 when the organization didn’t have a centralized marketing team. Due to the high staff turnover and a lack of consistent training and oversight, the site had become unwieldy and hard to navigate. The redesign was a daunting task, and the organizations’ small in-house team decided that they couldn’t manage a project of this scope alone.
There were several focal points for this project. Firstly, the Y wanted to improve their web presence as a sales tool and to enhance their community positioning. Secondly, they needed to reduce web development costs and risks by moving the website onto an open platform (Open Y). Thirdly, they were looking to take advantage of new features in Drupal 8 and Open Y, including easy-to-add content management. They then wanted to enhance site functionality with key technical integrations, including support for online transactions. Finally, they looked to reduce their technical burden with a clean, new site for easier maintenance in the future.
About the project
The organization had identified that they wanted to move onto the Open Y platform and were looking for a development company that understood the Y movement, had Drupal 8 expertise and could function as an extension of their marketing communications team.
In addition to handling the project startup and management, ImageX provided discovery, design, and web development services. The initial project—the redesign of the main website—began in May 2017 and concluded in October 2017. The scope expanded to include a standalone website for the Y’s overnight camp. This work began in November 2017 and concluded six weeks later.
The project startup included a kickoff meeting, creating the work breakdown schedule, and setting up task-tracking and communication tools.
The ImageX project manager was responsible for planning and task scheduling, issue management and escalation, budget monitoring, and status reporting. The project featured stages of agile development in which the team prioritized the scope is defined, time-limited sprints.
During the discovery phase of the project, ImageX fleshed out information that was shared and tailored the deployment of Open Y to fit goals and priorities. We also assisted with user-centric design, information architecture, and wireframing to ensure a strong UX for the end product.
I
n the first development stage, ImageX implemented a foundational web server and CMS infrastructure based on Drupal 8 and the Open Y distribution and assisted with media and content migrations. The client’s internal team worked on content updates and images. ImageX performed regular quality-assurance (QA) checks, including design QA, multiple-browser compatibility, and usability testing. For the second stage, we implemented prioritized enhancements to the website and worked with third parties to configure integrations.
The association website has experienced 152% growth in page views since launching, and the average session duration lengthened by 22%. Total page views on the overnight camp website (which was formerly a set of subpages on the association site) have increased by 129%; the average session duration rose by 340%.
The new camp website has also been a factor in enrollment growth. The client reached 75% of their goal within eight weeks of launching—four months earlier than the year before.
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal allowed the ability to function as an extension of their marketing and communications team. The goal of enhancing the site to become a larger sales tool was made possible by working with Drupal 8 in tandem with Open Y. YMCA of Western North Carolina was also excited to use some of the newer Drupal 8 features, specifically the easy-to-add content management.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Open Y was developed to help create websites for the YMCA's.
