Highlights of 2019 Website update

by Munish Sharma

Content

Based on the information survey we used during the 2016 update, the content is determined by what our members have requested to see on the society website.

Four main content pages are developed according IEOS Members' requests:

  • Events: Members usually want to know when is our next society event and besides having link to the dedicated page on EventBrite, we have added Tockify calendar that also shares the details of meetings that Board members are holding as they are serving their respective roles in IEOS.
  • Newsletters: It has happened to most of us that we have either deleted an email by mistake or ignored until we needed something from that email. With help of built in MailChimp Newsletter Archive Service, we have automated the process of archiving and sharing old newsletters.
  • Member Locator: Based on the contact information shared by COA, this locator serves as an easy tool for members to share their personal or practice information with other members. There is also a link to form to update the contact information. This again is built using another open source free service BatchGeo
  • Jobs: Our members have requested us several times an easy portal for them to share openings for new positions in their location, process of sharing contract jobs or other locum jobs when they are on vacation or taking time off for some other reason. We find it so important that we have built a dedicated WebApp with dedicated subdomain http://jobs.ieos.org dedicated to just this content type.

Two Webpages for everything else we think is important to members:

  • Join IEOS: This page not only highlights the membership message from COA but also provides the links to all the important forms an Optometrist may need to join COA and IEOS. Additionally, we have embedded the Wufoo form from COA and AOA to collect leads on membership related questions.
  • COA: Over the years we have shared messages from COA on our website as posts and pages using tags COA. To elevate the tags as an easy way to organize content, we have created this page to centralize and organize all the messages in one webpage http://ieos.org/tag/coa/ This also acts as common place to share advocacy and membership campaigns.

Other content highlights include:

  • Interacrtive Contact us page for members to reach us easily
  • Mailchimp Newsletter Signup option (details in design below)
  • Image galleries to highlight the past events.
  • Highlight Events of other COA Local Societies Equal importance to events from each and every society that represent COA. Member engagement is a team effort and we are proud to be partners in it.

Design

As most of us access the websites not only using conventional means like computer and Laptop but also smartphones and tablets, the website was designed using all new tools to make it responsive and mobile ready.

Responsive Design

The very front page has slider of featured posts that highlight the important events including our annual CE event (the Almost Free CE), COA House of Delegates, our Annual Summer Mixer Membership Campaign and Visits from COA executives as well as new board swearing in ceremonies.

We get frequest requests from both IEOS members and non members about society events and we have used Mailchimp as a newsletter service for some years now. This subscription button provide option to members to easily sign up for the IEOS Mailchimp Subsciption.

Instead to creating a complicated website with busy header and footer contents with multiple columns and multipage navigation we made a bold design decision to move to simple elegant minimalist two column classic-style layout and beautiful typography to offer our members a pleasant browsing experience.

Lighbox Image Galleries
Our members are the face of our organization and these image galleries are to add personal touch to our events and activities.

2019 AFCE

Ease of Use/Interactivity

  • Most important Posts as a Front Page Slider: Website has a slider of posts in front and that covers the most important posts including details on COA Membership, COA HOD, our Annual AFCE event, Annual Spring Membership Mixer details.
  • Latest First Strategy: Members never have to look for what is the latest CE event for COA or IEOS or neighboring societies, it will always be on the very first page. Similarly the latest legislative efforts or the latest announcement including member requests for fill-in etc. will be on the first page.
  • To make it easy for members to search content, we have designed an easy full page search page easily accessible on the top right of the front page.
  • Tag Cloud and Latest Post on right sidebar can be accessed from every page of website. This make it easy for members to click to the latest post relevant to them from any page of website. Similarly, we have developed Tags for all the most relevant topics and members can just click on the tags to locate all the posts related to that topic.

Innovation

In 2016 we decided to move from hosted Wordpress to self hosted Virtual Private Server using Digital Cloud and server management using Server Pilot. For content management system we decided to move from bloated and slow Wordpress to a flat file CMS like Ghost CMS.  Besides the fast speed Ghost CMS offers great security and an easy user interface for future communication and IT chairs to work.

For Newsletter we are using Mailchimp integration as we've discussed content details above, for event management we are using EventBrite and comments management we have been using Disqus.