Reviewing our website

The Reef
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Hello @reef-external,
Ping @reef-recruitment, @Sterre and @alberto,

There has been some talk lately about renewing the website. The way I understand our recruitment process, the website is an essential element in the pipeline for people to sign up for a presentation. With an outdated website I believe that the money that was invested in these beautiful flyers and the time to distribute them goes partially to waste because people might click away.

I had a short discussion with @joannes on the topic, who proposed a complete redraft based on personas and a remodelling using AI.

I committed to take care of the redrafting, which I will try to do in the course of this week. For the moment however what I am going to do is redraft the text in such a way that it will still fit in the current structure, so that it can go live as soon as it is ready. There are several reasons for this:

  • There are only three weeks left before the Brussels’ expats leave the city. Time is therefore of the matter.

  • Done is better than perfect. Just renewing the text and the basic images will already make a major difference.

  • I am not clear how the use of AI is in line with our commitment to ecology and open source. I am not an expert on these things, so I will stay out of it, but it is one reason more for me to not invest time in something I don’t believe in, and which will take more time than what I have in mind.

  • I am feeling seriously frustrated with a couple of things that are currently going on, including the lack of energy / commitment, and the difficult communication in the Signal group of the HC Outreach. So I’m going to take care of this one last thing which I believe is important for us all (i.e. reduce the financial impact), and then I am just going to retreat for a while I think.

If somebody afterwards wants to invest more time in making it graphically and/or textually more appealing, by all means go ahead of course.

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Totally agree. Content trumps JavaScript bells and whistles.

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hello Lee, what I have heard/understood yesterday in team external meeting is not only a redraft of the text of the current website but also a new website app build with AI (claude) but with the purpose of having a new look and feel to make it visually more atractive. this is what i have heard.

my opinion on this is : 1)in order to have an opinion i need to see the technical specs of the new website. 2)if we are going to open a “chantier” it would be nice that is not only purely aesthetics but also see how the website interacts with other recruitment tools like email messaaging for events and registration system. etc.

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Hi @alberto,

I have made minor changes to the text of the website, to make it a bit more up-to-date and also to put a bit more emphasis on what we have to offer. It is saved in Team External > Communication > Website revision: Login – Nextcloud

When you find a moment, can you please put this text online? @Sterre might be able to provide you with a graphical file or two to replace the current ones.

Other than that I would personally take the pages for the neighbours offline, because they are completely outdated, and I’d also consider to take the FR and NL offline until we find a volunteer to update the translations. TIA!

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The new English website is now online.

I was thinking it might be worth it to update the images on the landing page, no? I see that the new flyer has a new visual. If you want me to do it, just point me to the file you would like to see displayed.

Another thing: could a francophone and a neerlandophone person take the lead on translating the update English website into our French and Dutch versions?

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This, I think is of secondary importance.

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Hello @Alberto, is there a way I can get access to the backend of the website? I would like to have a look at it, change some visuals here and there.

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There is a ‘wordpress.md’ file in the Login Credentials folder.

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Thanks Alberto. Can I also edit the different pages (English, French, Nederlands) from this wordpress site (staging WP admin)? Or is this another source?

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I took the liberty to redesign the main page.

I took notes of the old design, so if anyone wants to object, let me know. We can switch back to the old design without a problem.

Images and screenshot of the old website are in the folder ‘revising the website’ that Lee created.

I would like to work on the other pages (languages, about, who are we
 etc), but I believe this is not via Wordpress?

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I like it a lot. Thanks a lot Sterre!

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Hi, good to know that the architects are now producing 3D renderings. Asterix is ready. Maisonettes coming soon! Dixit Els.

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No objection, thanks for doing this.

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Dear @reeflings,

I’m currently working on a redesign of the website using the WordPress editor.

I spoke with @alberto about the reasoning behind building the website as separate pages in ER. The main advantage is that it allows anyone to edit the website easily. Since the website changes frequently, it’s important to avoid complex structures that can only be managed by a single “webmaster.”

At the same time, Alberto pointed out that we pay a price for this simplicity: the website’s visuals and overall design are more constrained.

If we decide to make changes, one of our main priorities should be minimizing what Alberto calls technological debt —creating a setup that is only understandable or maintainable by its original creator. We need a website that can continue to evolve through frequent updates, while remaining accessible for anyone on the team to edit.

So, if we decide to switch to a different approach, we should document it carefully so that multiple people can confidently edit and maintain the website.

I logged into the WordPress account (the credentials are in the “Login Credentials” folder) and found that WordPress is quite straightforward to use. I’m also happy to create a clear, step-by-step guide explaining how to edit, update, add, or remove pages.

My question to you is:

  • Would this approach work for everyone? Are we comfortable switching, at least for the time being, from ER to WordPress, provided that we keep technological debt to a minimum? We can keep the ER pages in case we find that the Wordpress editor is too complicated to use.

  • Does anyone want to be involved in this rethinking of the design? @manuelpueyo, you have been in charge of the website: if you are up for it, I’d love to look at it together and integrate the ideas you expressed earlier in this topic. @Lee, you’ve done your part, but very welcome to keep an eye on the design if you want to. And to all the others as well, of course (@Liesbet happy to have your input as coördinator team External).

For anyone who’s curious about what I’m working on, I’ve attached screenshots of the example pages below.

https://c301.nl.tabdigital.eu/apps/files/files/298946?dir=/The%20Reef%20shared%20folder/Team%20External/Communication/Website%20revision/Screenshots%20new%20pages%20Wordpress&editing=false&openfile=true

https://c301.nl.tabdigital.eu/apps/files/files/298943?dir=/The%20Reef%20shared%20folder/Team%20External/Communication/Website%20revision/Screenshots%20new%20pages%20Wordpress&editing=false&openfile=true

https://c301.nl.tabdigital.eu/apps/files/files/298942?dir=/The%20Reef%20shared%20folder/Team%20External/Communication/Website%20revision/Screenshots%20new%20pages%20Wordpress&editing=false&openfile=true

You can also have a look yourself by logging into Wordpress (https://wordpress.com/log-in/fr) with the email and password in the ‘login credentials’ folder, go to ‘Pages’ on the left side bar, and click ‘English’.

Happy to hear your thoughts.

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Hi Sterre,

Thanks a lot for documenting your conversation with Alberto, and for bringing clarity about why things are how they are and how they could possibly change.

In terms of governance however I would advice to not open this to all Reeflings. The way I see it, this is a clear “level 2” decision, which means that a team has autonomy to make decisions (and then document them) without further consultation. Tonight at the Coordination Group we have an item on the agenda to discuss in which Team we want to place this outreach domain, so let’s maybe wait for that?

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@reef-external, @reef-recruitment & @Lee
We used to have the prices of the remaining units on the website, but they are not there anymore. I think this is also an important “frequently asked question” that we should mention on the website, without people having to look too extensively in our documents.
Do you agree that we put it back on the page? And if yes, which image/document/table can I use to demonstrate the prices of our last units?

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For the people curious: already a first look at our ‘English’ page
English – The Reef
Feedback welcome! With feedback I can improve the page and then work on the other languages.
@Guillaume and I will provide translation of the English text.

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Hi Sterre,
I suppose that since the prices were there before, it should be ok to put them back on.
You can find them on slide 28 of the slide we use to present our project - make sure you use the Prices before taxes.
There used to be a short text accompagnying the table with prices explaining a bit what you get for that price (acces to the common spaces, PEB A quality building, neighbours,
) - maybe you can recover that part (and maybe update it a bit?). I would also complete the information with a message that we explain the full pricing model at our presentations and they should join one (+ link to the part of the page where the registration links are.

On another aspect :
For the text accompanying the presentation dates it used to be something along the lines : if you cannot make it to a presentation, sign up to our newletter and we will let you know (I suppose it missed the part “when new dates are published”). The text now is “If you are interested to stay informed about The Reef, we recommend you subscribe to our mailing list.” - can it be changed to “If you are interested to stay informed about The Reef and upcoming presentations, we recommend you subscribe to our mailing list.”

I would also present the possibility “none of these dates work, but you fell in love with the project and want to join - write to us at “email” to see whether we can meet outside of these dates.”

Thank you

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Hi Sterre, it looks really great! Waw! Well done!

I agree with Lucia’s feedback. I would definitely put back the prices where people can easily find them. No further comments from my side :slight_smile:

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Thanks Lucia, very useful feedback. I think I integrated all your comments in the website.

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