Douglas Hineline - UX Portfolio

IndyMoms.com

Launch in November 2006

2.6 million page views a month

IndyMoms.com was the first major website design project of my career. Our assignment was to achieve a more significant reach among the most lucrative market of them all, mothers. Handling the vast majority of the purchases for their entire family, the moms market is a constant target for advertisers in almost all industries. If the Star could capture a greater reach in this target market, engage a dialogue and build brand loyalty, it would have few problems selling ads.

After discussion and strategy sessions, a simple concept took shape: IndyMoms.com was to become an easy to use discussion of all things motherhood. After careful consideration of the various ways news and events data could be mined and presented, it was fairly simple to fill in the details. We selected Drupal as our platform because it was open source and presented us with the opportunity to launch quickly. The final site was a simple and elegant mash up of traditional moderated message boards, user profiles and events calendars. All Star media and news was sifted through the 'mom lens' and presented as either a simple news item or in facilitated discussions.

Although many moms and motherhood related sites existed at the time, Indymoms.com was one of the first to be launched that was operated by an actual news organization. This provided a stable base for simple editorial processes and moderation, and under this careful guidance one of Indiana's most loving and nurturing web communities took flight.

Acknowledgments

Most of the graphic elements of this design were created by Kevin Poortinga, John Scott and Arnel Reynon. All three are exceptional designers and I owe a great deal to their gumption and skill.