Wine to Water DR

During my graduate program, I served as project manager for my group as we designed and developed a website for Wine to Water. This was a non-profit organization that made ceramic water filters for communities that did not have a clean water supply. Wine to Water already had a main website; we were asked to create a web presence for their location in the Dominican Republic.

Date: Fall 2016 - Winter 2017 Skills: Project Management, User Research, UX Design, Content Strategy, Photography

Research

We spent two and a half months gathering research to begin the project. Our goal was to make visitors of our site want to travel to the DR and serve the community and/or give to this organization. We looked at Wine to Water's web presence for their various other locations to evaluate their successes and areas of growth. We also compared Wine to Water to other non-profit organization's websites.

I led several conversations with the stakeholders from Wine to Water to make sure we understand their needs; who they are focused on helping in the DR and who is their target audience of volunteers. We came to understand that Americans in the millennial age group where the main volunteers. Also, the organization helps entire communities so it was important to show a sense of family and togetherness on the website.

Once the message of the website was clear, we decided the content strategy of the site. We knew there would be four main pages: Home page, About, Serve, and Connect.

Home page - As you scroll down there is a welcome and mission statement giving the user an overview of what to expect from the site. The main video of the site is also on the homepage. We felt this video truly captures the culture and spirit of this community.
About page - complete with three subpages that focus on telling you what is Wine to Water, why you should chose to volunteer with Wine to Water, and why to specifically volunteer in the DR.
Serve page - We wanted to focus on making sure users know everything about what it takes to serve these communities. The details and travel dates are listed here. Another section of the page is focused on the impact of volunteering and how it is truly changing these communities.
Connect page - that has a video of pictures to show more of the culture of the DR. You will see the volunteers in the factory as well as out in the community. Below the slideshow is a contact form so users can reach out to the organization if they ever have any questions.

Home page - As you scroll down there is a welcome and mission statement giving the user an overview of what to expect from the site. The main video of the site is also on the homepage. We felt this video truly captures the culture and spirit of this community.
About page - complete with three subpages that focus on telling you what is Wine to Water, why you should chose to volunteer with Wine to Water, and why to specifically volunteer in the DR.
Serve page - We wanted to focus on making sure users know everything about what it takes to serve these communities. The details and travel dates are listed here. Another section of the page is focused on the impact of volunteering and how it is truly changing these communities.
Connect page - that has a video of pictures to show more of the culture of the DR. You will see the volunteers in the factory as well as out in the community. Below the slideshow is a contact form so users can reach out to the organization if they ever have any questions.

Traveling to the DR

Our team of five spent one week in the Dominincan Republic to gather all of the content for the website. My teammates roles were Web Developer, Writer, Videographer, and Graphic Designer. As Project Manager, I created a time line for us to follow so we could stay on schedule. I helped each team member to find solutions for any problems and helped to create an environment where everyone was comfortable working together. I also served as the photographer for our team. We spent our time conducting and filming interviews with the volunteers as well as people in the community, taking B roll for the five videos we created for the website, and connected with the atmosphere so we could highlight the culture and spirit of the community.

five people smiling in the dominican republic

Results

When we got back from the DR, we had two weeks to pull everything together. Everyone worked hard to finish their jobs and helped each other to complete the website. At the end of the two weeks, we presented the website to the clients from Wine to Water as well as members from the Elon University community. Below are some of the visual components that our team designed and created.