Project Story
New Communities Program
Each community has its own presence on the site.
Well-written articles provide the rich content necessary for a successful site.
Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau aggregates 20+ feeds from sites of interest.
The New Communities Program (NCP) is a long-term initiative of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation/Chicago (LISC/Chicago) to support comprehensive community development in 16 Chicago neighborhoods. It's goal is to rejuvenate communities, bolster those in danger of losing ground, and preserve the diversity of areas in the path of gentrification.
Since we designed the original NCP website in 2004, site traffic has steadily grown, hundreds of articles and multimedia resources are now available on the site, and the program has been a widely hailed success. Our challenge was to update the visual design and improve the user experience while maintaining the basic site structure that focuses on the communities the program supports.
Highlights
- A clean, modern design built with Web standard XHTML/CSS
- Increased visibility of articles on home page to show at a glance what's new
- Site search powered by Google Mini to provide fast, relevant results
- Simplified news archive browsing via tag cloud, community, date, author, and more
- Integration of Google Maps and Amazon Web services
- Aggregated, community news feeds to integrate syndicated content
The site is a robust and effective communications tool that helps NCP publicize the efforts of the neighborhood lead agencies and their local partners.