Sound Experience

Sound Experience sails the historic schooner Adventuress to educate, inspire, and empower an inclusive community to make a difference for the future of  Puget Sound’s marine environment. The organization uses the ship as a mobile classroom which visits ports throughout the sound. Working in conjunction with schools and other educational organizations, on-board educators teach students about biology, watersheds, marine mammals, nautical skills and more.

URL:  http://www.soundexp.org/

Type: Non-Profit

Design Overview

Currently, the design is dysfunctional due to an emergency. Someone had recently stolen the ship’s steering wheel and the organization is now trying to recover the 98 year-old artifact. As a result, the Home Page is being used to bring attention to the issue and includes a full page of text regarding the story.

Top of Page

The top of the page includes four photos of students, crew and the ship sailing. Below this gallery there is a top navigation bar with links to sections including “Sail with Us,” “Get Involved,” “Our Ship,” “Our Organization” and “News.” Below is the heading for the stolen wheel article with text.

Left Column

The left navigation bar includes a site search box, “Shortcuts” to sections where visitors can contribute, become a member, sign-up for a newsletter, and locate the Adventuress. A “What’s New” section and “Adventuress Gear” link complete the left column.

Bottom of Page

Below the main article are links to donate to their 29/29 fundraising campaign, join upcoming public sails, volunteer as a crewmember, and register your class for 2013.

The design is very simple, and pages do not accommodate a larger display screen very well. There is no site map,  comment sections, blog,  and no way for users to generate content. The photo galleries link to a Flicker page. There is no mobile App integration.

Audience

The site is trying to appeal to many different groups:

  • General public who is seeking basic information on cruises and the ship
  • Educators who may be interested in their field programs
  • Educational Institutions which might consider chartering the boat for school use
  • Students
  • Crew and past visitors (members) who wish to stay up-to-date
  • People looking to make a donation to the program

Business/Site Goals

  • Generate income by hosting sailing voyages for students, the public, schools and corporations
  • Maintain an online community of Adventuress enthusiasts
  • Generate donations for the program
  • Increase awareness of marine environmental issues facing Puget Sound

Social Media Integration

Links to social media from the left Nav bar.

This is the extent of the access to their YouTube Channel with videos. They have 28 subscribers.

This is available from the News > Stay Connected menu on the top Nav bar.

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Technologies Used:

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Google Analytics, Goggle Maps, YouTube Channel

The site is designed using DoubleKnot:  www.doubleknot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Team Members: Ian Olson, Jake Stout

Reviews/analysis of site:

Based on Alexa.com findings, soundexp.org has a global traffic rank of 15,421,933. soundexp.org also reaches roughly 77 unique users each month and has 167 backlinks according to Alexa. The estimated monthly ad revenue is $ 0.00.

Traffic and Revenue of soundexp.org is estimated to be decreasing within the last 3 months. The Site was launched at Wednesday, 31 July 1996 and is 16 years and 3 months old.

The Server of soundexp.org is powered by the Apache webserver software and the server is physically located in United States (Arizona) and uses the IP address 72.167.59.14. The host is GoDaddy. There are no site reviews for Sound Experience.

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