The Launch of the Plum Island Aerodrome Web Site

by Charlotte Vincent

It began with a simple question from Alex Hasapis, PIA’s board member and public information officer. “Is there web training for the general public available through Newburyport High School (NHS)?”

The question was directed to Sarah Leadbeater, NHS Technology Instructor and faculty coach for NHS’ team entry in the annual Department of Energy’s Real World Design Challenge (RWDC) national competition.

Sarah responded with a few questions of her own: “What are you looking to do and are you open to becoming a real world client for my web class students?”

This five minute exchange took place in PIA’s Hangar #1 following the RWDC state award ceremony for NHS’ MA championship team on March 18, 2009. It marked the beginning of a “win-win” collaboration between PIA and NHS. NHS secured a client for its web design students to gain practical, “real world” experience. PIA gained the talent and expertise to design and develop our web site. The collaborative project began in earnest this past September with the start of the new school year.

NHS Goes To Work for PIA
Sarah wasted no time in putting her web technology students to work. She set the stage for the design work by presenting her students with PIA’s objectives, content outline and preliminary design requirements for the web site.

She challenged the students to propose alternative designs for the PIA web site using their fresh learnings in web technology and their creative design skills.

By the beginning of October, NHS students had turned in a dozen alternative design sketches for our PIA web site!

Our First Homework Assignment in Years
Sarah turned them over to Alex and yours truly along with our homework assignments: “Tell me what you like and don’t like.” Simply stated, but simple? Not so much! It turns out there’s a lot more to web design than we ever thought! Here are just a few of the pressing questions which needed - not our personal taste answers – but PIA answers.

Sure there’s going to be a photo or graphic – but which one both catches the eye of visitors to our web site while also best representing PIA - who we are and what we do? Don’t forget to tell me how big you want it and where you want it positioned.

Of course, we need color – but which of PIA’s trademark colors will accent the borders and draw visitors into the site with a warm and welcoming tone? Do we stick with one color for the borders and the tabs to keep it simple and clean? What about the font style and color for the text on the page tabs … what color breaks through the background color for reading clarity while blending well aesthetically?
Will that clever idea of a background graphic in the content portion of the page be too distracting to the reader or will it subliminally reinforce the PIA brand? By the way what best depicts the PIA brand?

How do we keep that uniquely creative banner towing of the page tabs so it’s a playful enticement to explore further the PIA web site without making it too gimmicky and detracting to PIA’s credibility and reputation as a professional non-profit organization?

Help from “The Coach”
After several lively discussions, Alex and I consolidated our answers and drew up our “Help Us, Sarah” list. Sarah joined us at 2B2’s Airport Office and Lounge for a second round of design discussions … one design element at a time.

The first thing Sarah did was listen attentively and objectively to our likes/dislikes, our own creative design ideas, and our questions and concerns which inevitably began or ended with a “Can we do this?”, “We haven’t a clue”, or “What do you think, Sarah?”

Sarah posed questions to clarify and advance our thinking and to generate new ideas. She helped us explore the pros and cons of different design options. She freely offered explanations and examples of effective web designs. She was a little more selective in offering recommendations. She preferred instead to lead us to our own conclusions and to defer to us as the best to decide what was best for PIA.

We left the design meeting with final specifications for most design elements and new homework assignments for everyone.

From the drawing board to site construction
Alex moved quickly on those tasks which were on the critical path for web site development. Drawing on his own engineering and software technology expertise, he produced and passed onto Sarah the header photo, the background graphic, and the airplane sketch for the banner towing of page tabs. He accessed a web site to which Sarah had referred us and selected a PIA web site name and address.

It was now time to meet once again with our coach. This time we met on Sarah’s turf in the NHS’ technology lab. Sarah walked us through the online process of officially registering our web site address and initiating our web hosting service. By the time we left NHS, the PIA flag was firmly planted at www.plumislandaerodrome.org.We had claimed it as our own!

At this point, the web site was just a shell. Using web development software and our final web design sketch, Sarah converted the shell into a functional prototype. She asked us to play with the prototype and to navigate and explore all features of the web site. She was looking for confirmation that www.plumislandaerodrome.org looked and worked in a PIA-friendly way.

Alex managed to break away from his new web site playground to complete his remaining work assignments. With the help of Ted Russell, he pulled together the text for the History page. With some quick instructions from Sarah, he set up the Google calendar for the Events page. He established the Links and Contact Pages, before moving onto the Photo Gallery. He rummaged through his ever-growing digital photo library. He was on a mission. He wanted to give visitors to the web site a glimpse into life at our thriving “Little Old” airport and community – the “who and what” of PIA. Technically he pulled his “Top 80” photo picks into a digital photo album – inserting captions and commentary along the way.

While Alex and Sarah were working their technical magic, yours truly was PC-side writing the PIA story for the web site. As content for a web page rolled off the presses, it was sent to the desk of Alex, the editor, for review and comments. Content was revised and finalized, one page at a time, until the PIA story was “ready to go to print”.

Sarah gets a ride in the Varga

Sarah uploaded each page of content onto the web site. As each page went up, yours truly clicked it open for review and proof-reading. This operation continued in iterative and real-time fashion until yours truly stamped all content with a PIA seal of approval.

Alex, in the meantime, was feverishly trouble-shooting a few technical breaks on the Links page. He worked in tag team fashion with Sarah until the final bugs were stamped out of the web site with his final PIA seal of approval.

Sarah continued to work behind the technical scenes. We were about to move out of prototype land and into the land of the world wide web. Alex and I anxiously waited for Sarah’s email giving us final clearance for take-off. Sarah’s email landed in our inbox with a final word from our coach: “We’ve gone live. Check it out!” It was 10:00 p.m. on Thursday night, January 14, 2010 – www.plumislandaerodrome.org was launched.

As we go into our final approach with this blog article, I’m reminded of all we’ve learned during this launch of the PIA web site. Yes, we’ve learned a lot about web technology and design. But what really stands out in our minds, is seeing Sarah Leadbeater in action and seeing the powerful and far-reaching impact this outstanding teacher and coach has on her students and their lives. Sarah’s professionalism and integrity are impeccable. Her technology and teaching credentials put her at “head of the class”. Her personable nature and sense of humor places the highest value on people, life balance and perspective. Her passion, effervescence and exuberance are deeply motivating and contagious. Her dedication and commitment to her students and higher learning are unfaltering.

Plum Island Aerodrome would like to thank the technology students at NHS for their creative contributions to the PIA web site. PIA especially thanks, Sarah Leadbeater, for her leadership, training, and contributions – and for giving our PIA web site its wings!
Publisher's note:
Charlotte better known as "Charlie" recently retired from years in the Information Technology world. Her experiences in that global arena at very high levels required extensive technical writing and proposal work, but her writing talent extends beyond the technical. She has written articles on varied subjects for local papers, her own publication(The Plum Island Pages), as well as this blog. Her contribution to the creation of the web site clearly downplayed in her coverage above is witness to her humble view of all her talents. I personally wish to thank her for all she does quietly in the background for "The Little Airport That Wouldn't Go Away". By the way she is the one in the Stearman, hiding behind the flying helmet, fully trusting the flying skills of Tom Murray. I would also like to acknowledge the creative aerial photography by Jim Vaiknoris that graces our cover page and some of the Gallery