Project Overview

For this group project, we aimed to enhance the 4th Street Farms website to showcase their community initiatives and increase access to sustainable local food systems. Our goals included improving volunteer appeal, facilitating attendee engagement, and creating a user-friendly interface for easy navigation. The website served as a platform to announce events, revitalize communities, and promote volunteer support among diverse demographics while bridging the gap between website users and Facebook followers.

4th Street Farms is a nonprofit community organization based out of Weinland Park that consists of neighbors and volunteers who collaborated with businesses and community organizations to provide local food systems and activities to the community. Their main objective was to increase the community's access to sustainable local food systems. While the organization had several community initiatives, such as gardening events, the Little Free Library program, and family-centered events like picnics, there was room for improvement in organizing the content on their website.

The project goals included appealing to volunteers by providing clear and easily accessible information about volunteering opportunities, streamlining the website navigation to appeal to attendees and provide key information about events, and making the website visually appealing and intuitive for all users.

To address these goals, the project team proposed researched solutions such as adding a specific Volunteers page under the Home navigation bar button, changing the Navigation Bar language to "Upcoming Events," and replacing the empty and unkept Calendar widget with a more consistent Facebook widget. The team also suggested reorganizing the drop-down menus, improving the general aesthetic and structure of the website, and creating specific persona scenarios to test the usability of the proposed changes.

Overall, the project aimed to enhance the website's functionality, usability, and visual appeal to attract more volunteers, provide relevant information to attendees, and create a positive user experience for all visitors.