Case Studies
Fairfax Open for Business - quickly responding to an urgent need
In mid March of 2020, we were approached by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce to help update their Wordpress site with its listings of local businesses. The pandemic had changed the rules for everything, there were new shelter-in-place orders rolling out every few days, and nobody knew what was open, what the rules were, or how to shop in our small town’s local stores and restaurants.
After working with the Wordpress site for a bit, it became obvious that while it had a robust & complex system for listing all the businesses by category, it was neither easy to use nor inviting. We suggested a quick rollout of a brand new site on Squarespace, that would be visually inviting, easy to update quickly, and could serve as a central point of information about our community.
The Chamber picked the name FairfaxOpenForBusiness.com, and we got moving. The local businesses were hurting, and they needed all the help they could get. Local photographers pitched in, the Chamber and members of the Town Council did outreach to the restaurants and brick and mortar stores, and we put the site together in just a few weeks.
We launched the site on April 18, 2020, and it immediately became a hub of information. Banners and postcards sent people to the site, and word of mouth increased traffic. We also added a mailing list, and created Instagram and Facebook pages. We had responded quickly to the need, and made a material difference to the town.
Heller Manus - from old-school site to a robust Content Management System
Heller Manus is a San Francisco-based architecture, master planning, and urban design firm with offices in San Francisco and Shanghai. When Coconut Moon started working with Heller Manus, the site was built without a content management system, which meant that all content updates had to be sent to us and implemented manually. The labor cost of updating the portfolio was high and the site tended to get out of date due to the workload involved in keeping it fresh.
We suggested a switch to the Drupal content management system and a complete visual redesign at the same time. Working with Amy Ray Designs on the design, we built a completely new site in Drupal 8. The client can now update their website easily in-house and keep their content fresh and timely with significant cost savings. Coconut Moon remains on board for maintenance, trouble-shooting and new feature requests.
Audubon Canyon Ranch - managing complex stakeholder needs
Audubon Canyon Ranch (ACR) is a not-for-profit environmental conservation and education organization located in Northern California. Founded in 1962 to save a major heron population and block commercial development which could impact the herons, it now stewards a system of nature preserves and conducts conservation science and education programs. ACR has a large variety of stakeholders including volunteers, staff, board members, educators and students. Their web site needs to work for all of their constituents and provide intuitive interaction and engagement appropriate for their interests and needs.
When Coconut Moon first started working with ACR in 2003, the site was hard-coded in HTML. Not only did the site need a new design and a CMS to allow for in-house content edits but it was important to have various levels of access with a fine-tuned login system to support the many unique types of users. Coconut Moon worked with the ACR team and an outside design firm to produce a Drupal 6 site that delivered multiple layers of access as well as robust public-facing content
Because of Drupal’s highly customizable user permissions structure, we were able to control not only who could see which areas of the logged-in site but also who could edit the content in those areas. Certain team members were empowered to edit specific parts of the site without worrying that they would mistakenly make changes not in their purview. In addition, workflows were implemented that allowed team members to submit certain types of content - for example, events - for approval before publication.
In the years since then, the site has undergone several visual and UI updates - including one to incorporate new branding - and has been upgraded to Drupal 7. ACR manages the bulk of the content editing and Coconut Moon continues to support them in keeping the site fresh and secure. Coconut Moon also works annually with ACR, partnering on strategic planning and implementation for website development, enhancements and audience growth.