SWEB122: Advocate Portal Roundtable November 7, 2008

Panelists and Participants David Bonebrake, LSNTAP Liz Keith, Pro Bono Net Jeffrey Fortkamp, Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation Tory Messina, PBN New York Program Coordinator Chris Moulton, Program Associate at Legal Aid Association of California

Topics for Today OST Drupal Upgrade and Advocate Sites Ohios Advocate Portal Pro Bono Net Platform Highlights Roundtable Section

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACE WITH YOUR ADVOCATE PORTAL? Questions for the Group

WHAT IS YOUR ADVOCATE PORTALS GREATEST STRENGTH? Questions for the Group

OST DRUPAL UPGRADE

Improving the Advocate Portal Reducing Participation Inequality Creating a Robust Search Option

Improving Participation Inequality Addressing Participation Inequality: nequality.html nequality.html User participation follows a Rule: 90% Lurkers 9% Intermittent Contributors 1% Heavy Contributors

Participation Inequality Nielsons Conclusion: You cant. Ways to Improve participation inequality: Make it easier to contribute Edit, dont create Promote quality contributions

Tools to Increase Participation Ratings Widget

Tools to Increase Participation WYSIWYG Editor (pronounced Whiz- ee-wig) Allows site administrators to be content editors

Creating a Robust Search Functionality Growing Popularity of Search: Users can now expect to find a high- performing, site-specific search engine on just about every content-rich website that is worth its salt. With a growing mass of web content from blogs, news sites, image and video archives, personal websites and more, internet users have an option to turn not only to the major search engines, but also to search engines on individual sites. -Pew Internet and American Life Project

Creating Robust Search Functionality Search will now index both PDFs and Word documents More sophisticated for weighing relevancy of search results Search filtering

Quick Pitch for Open Source

Ohio Legal Services

Topics for Today OST Drupal Upgrade and Advocate Sites Ohios Advocate Portal Pro Bono Net Platform Highlights Roundtable Section

Pro Bono Net resdesign What have we learned from users and admins about what makes a strong advocate portal? All about the content Interface design and copy Data portability Cross-media content delivery Web services vs. web sites

Interface Design & Copy Users are fickle! Need to get your message across quickly. Help users scan the text column format more easily. Clearly communicate the purpose. Less text and a visual hierarchy help. Make it easy for users to problem solve. Use action-oriented navigation labels Copy-writing is interface design - 37 Signals

Data portability Idea that content is not locked inside an HTML page; can be exposed through different channels Allows you to create multiple points of access to internal content on your site; Supports syndication of external content to your site.

Data widgets create multiple points of entry content and tools Data portability

Data widgets create multiple points of entry content and tools

Links to skinned versions of the probono.net/NY Opportunities Guide and Training Calendar RSS feed of upcoming trainings posted to the probono.net/NY Calendar Featured organization from the probono.net/NY Opportunities Guide. Changes dynamically when page is refreshed. Direct links to probono.net/NY Practice Areas

Cross-media content delivery Develop a hybrid e-communications strategy for delivering resources to advocates E-Newsletter NYC Pro Bono Center (HTML) PlainText works well too has both HTML and PlainText templates Tip of the Month – short summary of new area of law your advocate will find useful.

Cross-media content delivery Webinars NYC Pro Bono Center Pro Bono In New York series Podcasts IAN Pepper Hamilton Social media Twitter, Facebook

Topics for Today OST Drupal Upgrade and Advocate Sites Ohios Advocate Portal Pro Bono Net Platform Highlights Roundtable Section

HOW ARE YOU GETTING USER FEEDBACK? WHAT ARE YOU LEARNING?

WHAT STRATEGIES/ SOURCES ARE YOU USING FOR DOCUMENT CREATION?

WHAT ARE POSSIBLE APPROACHES FOR ADVOCATE ENGAGEMENT?

HOW ARE/CAN ADVOCATE PORTALS BE INCORPORATED INTO SERVICE DELIVERY, ESPECIALLY AS PROGRAMS EXPAND USE OF CASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS LIKE SHAREPOINT AND CENTRAL DESKTOP?

Thank You! Contacts David Bonebrake – Liz Keith – Please take a few minutes to fill out the training survey