National Domestic Violence Hotline
A project of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH), loveisrespect is a nonprofit organization designed to act as a resource for empowering youth to prevent and end dating abuse. Highly-trained advocates offer support, information, and advocacy to young people who have questions or concerns about their dating relationships.
Participating in this project was a great honor for our team. NDVH envisions a world where all relationships are positive, healthy, and free from violence, and so do we.
loveisrespect
Under the umbrella of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the loveisrespect online efforts not only include its own website, but also a Spanish site , The Hotline, and the Spanish-speaking version of The Hotline, all of which require a specialized setup to accommodate four websites.
Additionally, the nonprofit group also needed assistance with specific customized features that allowed for audience engagement, a content migration to a new host, and a rebuild of The Hotline websites. That’s when loveisrespect came to WebDevStudios.
Note: The website design and development work completed by WebDevStudios for this client may no longer be available and could have been altered since its creation.
Special Project Features
Sponsors Page
Donors keep nonprofits alive, and every type of 501(c)(3) organization that exists understands the importance of recognizing and thanking sponsors. For loveisrespect, WebDevStudios designed a backend system that makes it very simple and easy for website administrators to add a new sponsor. With the simple click of a checkbox, administrators can also select to feature specified sponsors for those times when certain donors require special recognition.
Notification Bar
The notification bar is an imperative part of the loveisrespect user experience. In consideration of the user’s safety, the notification bar is a dismissible message that alerts the user of ways to quickly exit the website should the user need to. When a user dismisses the message, it stays hidden for 30 days, or until they clear their browser cookies. On the backend and within the WordPress dashboard, WebDevStudios built an easy-to-use control system that allows the website administrator to customize the notification bar appearance and message.
Safety Alert
As is the case with the Notification Bar, the Safety Alert is another customized loveisrespect website user safety feature. The Safety Alert appears on every page load of the homepage when enabled. We configured an easy-to-use administrative system that allows website administrators to effortlessly customize the message and/or disable or enable the alert, as needed.
WordPress Multisite
A Multisite network is a collection of sites that all share the same WordPress installation. They can also share plugins and themes. The individual sites in the network are virtual sites in the sense that they do not have their own directories in the server, but they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, as well as separate tables in the database.
WebDevStudios built a WordPress Multisite configuration where all sites were set up as subdomains of loveisrespect. However, only the main loveisrespect site and its Spanish equivalent had the correct domains. We used a plugin called Domain Mapping to change The Hotline domains to thehotline.org and espanol.thehotline.org. Visitors and search engines never see the internal subdomains for these sites.
Quizzes
Online, loveisrespect strives to be a safe, inclusive space for young people to access information and get help in an environment that is designed specifically for them. One of the ways the group accomplishes this is through a series of quizzes. However, loveisrespect originally encountered some issues with these quizzes, as they were not engaging and came off tedious—almost like filling out a medical form. Yuck!
The quizzes were aimed at millennials, but this audience was not making any kind of connection with the content. WebDevStudios pushed the comfort zone of the loveisrespect team by creating a more immersive, iOS app-like experience for their users. We achieved this by making use of the full screen, ample white-space, and smooth animations.
Instead of giving the user all of the questions at once, we opted to offer only one at a time. Now, when the user makes their selection, the next question fades in and bumps the previous one “off-screen.” This provides a much more fun and engaging experience and doesn’t overwhelm the user with 20 questions all at once, which allows loveisrespect to successfully use their quizzes to help those who are in unhealthy relationships come to terms with their situation and offer some positive solutions and steps that they can take to protect themselves.