I just read a blog post about how helpful it can be to post about successes so you can look back over them in the future. And that reminded me that I forgot all about this annual post!
So let’s get to it then! It’s time for another annual recap of launches.
Websites are just tools that support organizations as they work toward their missions to improve the world.
2019 Site Recap
Legacy Debris Cleanup
This was such a fun project with long-time client Puget Soundkeeper. This project supported community engagement around removing debris from the Green-Duwamish river in order to improve salmon habitat. With a unique illustration commissioned for the project, we brought it to life on the home page and provided information about the project in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Somali. You really have to see the home page to get it! Scroll does that page for some fun web design and to learn about this important cleanup effort that is improving the health of salmon and people.
WTA Trailblazer App Improvements
This year, my work with long-time client Washington Trails Association (WTA) turned to the design of their Trailblazer app. We focused on improving new user experience and communicating the reasons for creating a free account that unlocks the most valuable features of the app. We were also able to improve the app’s design alignment with the website and resolve some color contrast accessibility issues. Since the design work supports new users, our hope is that it will help more and more people safely and responsibly access nature in Washington.
Enhanced Embed Block for YouTube Plugin
I launched a new plugin on WordPress.org for the first time in a long time. The plugin takes any embedded YouTube video and makes it way faster to initially load. You can see it in action right on this site, like in my post about examples of assistive technology or the one comparing fishing, phishing, and Phish. As with just about every plugin I make, I built it to solve a problem that I have and then published the tool for others to benefit from. Thus far, it hasn’t caught on much, but I love using it for my clients to make their sites load faster!
Interactive Park Tour
I wrote about about the park tours feature when it launched in the summer, and it’s still a highlight of my work from 2024. Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks wants to get people into parks, and this tour is an amazing way to help people do that. With a huge focus on making an “app-like” phone experience you can take with you, people can now swipe through this 19-stop tour and find themselves on the map using their phone’s geolocation ability. And because it’s built in WordPress, the website is ready to host additional tours built without any need for additional coding or graphics.
If you’re in Seattle, I’d highly recommend taking yourself on this tour in what is arguably the best park in the city.
Metis Associates
In the rare cases I take on a client that’s not a nonprofit, they’re almost always an organization that supports nonprofits. Metis Associates is a great example of that. Continuing a years-long partnership with Metis and teaming up with Moonlight Editorial and Flywheel—which handled design on this project—I provided development and migration on this total overhaul of the site to improve the branding, search engine optimization, and client conversion rates. The result has been a massive success supporting Metis and helping their new nonprofit clients.
TREC: Together Rising as an Environmental Community
It’s always a unique challenge when the time comes to redesign a site you’ve redesigned before. That was the case with TREC, where the organization had far outgrown the previous site we had built together. And not just that, TREC was changing what their acronym stood for and introducing a new logo and brand. So working closely with TREC staff and Weiher Creative, this new website was a total rebuilt with a new design, navigation structure, and added features. Read more about the TREC project in my portfolio or check the site out.
So those were the highlights, but of course I also spent tons of time supporting many other clients with updates, bug fixes, trainings, new features, accessibility fixes, and content improvements. The launches get all the headlines, but that’s definitely only part of the work.
A big congratulations to everyone involved in any of these projects, and a big thanks to the people I collaborated with. I really did enjoy every single one of these projects, and I love knowing that each one is supporting folks in my community and elsewhere.