Site Promotion -- Website experience -- Project #3

[Tariq Nisar Ahmed]

As salamu alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatuhu,

The multimedia and print media experience in your portfolio, Basim, could also help advance the project, in sha Allah.

(1) Right now, the site lacks an effective tutorial -- a quick and easy way for less adventurous users to learn how to get the most from the site.

(2) Also, the site lacks an effective promotional tool.  At the Aqeedah classes I have taken with Al Maghrib in Houston and New York, I was allowed to make presentations to the classes during class breaks.  In each case, I used screen shots -- these were projected on the same projector that had been used by the instructor -- very large screen.

The presentations had a small effect -- many people expressed interest in the site, quite a few have contributed jamat -- especially in the NY/NJ area -- a small number joined this forum, and one even hosts the site -- may Allah subhanahu wata ala reward all of you, in sha Allah.

But at the same class, I saw the promotional videos that Al Maghrib uses for its classes.  Those are very cool.  And they are completely portable.

Imagine a prayinjamat.com video.  Or flash.  One that was, in sha Allah, universal enough to be relevant to any Muslim.

(3) Finally, for now, with events like Texas Dawah coming up in Houston -- I am thinking of print advertising.  I got a quote of $150 for 5,000 business cards with a 4-color process on one side and black ink on the back.  I am thinking of having the front be a version of the banner below with the contrast increased.  And the back could list site features or how the site could be used for dawah.  The price was assuming everything was camera-ready.

Jazak Allah khair!

As salamu alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatuhu,

Tariq Ahmed
prayinj...@gmail.com

[chakir kandil]

Salam,

just a quick reply for the idea of paper advertizing.  I think it’s too early for that.  Once we get fully functional, at that moment we can start in this way.

 

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[Tariq Nisar Ahmed]

As salamu alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatuhu, 

On Nov 18, 2006, at 10:47 AM, chakir kandil wrote:

Salam,

just a quick reply for the idea of paper advertizing.  I think it’s too early for that.  Once we get fully functional, at that moment we can start in this way.

That is a very good consideration, Chakir.  I passed up a similar opportunity at Eid ul Fitr -- remember the tsage we were at back then -- basically for the same reason?

My follow-up, though: define "fully functional," please.  Is it a jamat count?  A technology point?  How would each of you define it?

Jazak Allah khair and as salamu alaykum wa Rahmat Allah wa Barakatuhu,

Tariq Ahmed
prayinj...@gmail.com

[Basim Mousilli]

Since you asked......

 

NOT THAT I DON'T LOVE YOUR WORK, GUYS, but these are key considerations when considering going "live" or pointing people to your website in a highly-visible public setting......

 

I would not suggest you advertise this yet because will not see the results you want. You get one chance for a big launch. The site is not ready for lauch because:

 

- You need a Main Menu system...i.e. buttons at the top...they don't need to be pretty...they just need to be there...

 

- "Training" is not in place yet. The whole "tutorial" you mentioned must be in place. The end user experience with the form is a bit cumbersome and time consuming for the Average Joe. If you don't institute this, your hard work will flop. This is one of the most important aspects of deployment. Consider using Adobe/Macromedia Breeze or Adobe/Macromedia Captivate.

 

- Manual entry for each new location requires up to 5 minutes to process; you run the risk of experience work overload and because of processing time manually and turnaround time, users will not be instantly gratified by seeing the results of their efforts to add data. This will deter users and they will think they added the data to some big black hole chasm that is still evolving.

 

-Pilot data quality needs to be mostly accurate (more complete Jamaat data without holes...in order for users to see the result of a "happy path" good scenario business process where PIJ is working smoothly.) I just read an article on BBC that users spend 4 seconds on a website before flipping to the next one if they are not satisfied. http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6131668.stm

 

- A user feedback mechanism is not strongly in place, i.e. bug report form, help tickets, support auto-response system. Do you have a dedicated resource (that is aware of response time) committed to responding to a unique functional mailbox for tech support/user issues? Consider http://flyspray.rocks.cc/

 

- Your site does not work without www preceding the url. You'll lose some visitors here. Consider http://www.lunarpages.com hosting if you are unsatisfied with your host for still other reasons. I think you said someone donated hosting, but don't let that get in your way. Hosting is $96.40 a year.

 

- Please don't use frames. Frames should only be used in rare situations. (A) Google doesn't crawl them well (B) Frames don't read well in some browsers (C) Frames don't let the user save the URL where he/she is currently at - it shows 1 URL the whole time. Consider usingn scrolling divs instead - same effect. Also, consider using a CMS for phase one - i.e. http://www.wordpress.org

 

- Do you have some sources of funding? Stream of donations from a particular donor? i.e. in the event that you need hosting all of a sudden or sudden expenses?

 

- Have you done some stakeholder analysis, i.e. interviewing islamic centers, ISGH, ICNA, ISNA to see what requirements they/their user base is looking for? Critical gaps?

 

- Have you done any executive alignment, i.e. with the same folks mentioned above, gtoten on the phone with some presidents of MSA national, etc. to leverage their experience and gain their buy in? This is key for successful deployment, sponsorship, and user adoption to gain top-down support.

 

These are just my seeds of thought and suggestions from my former-Accenture engagements doing similar work for Blockbuster.com, Halliburton, Chevron, KBR, and Sunoco, and many many of projects with Astrapod.com.

 

Take it easy and may Allah bless your efforts.

 

Salam,

Basim
 

[chakir kandil]

Salam

I mean technically fully fuctional.

 

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From: prayinjam...@googlegroups.com [mailto:prayinjam...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Tariq Nisar Ahmed

Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 2:33 PM
To: prayinjam...@googlegroups.com

[Tariq Nisar Ahmed]

Jazak Allah khair, Chakir -- but that's not exactly what I meant by a clarification.  Two people could have different ideas of when a site was technically functional.  For example, one person could say that it means the site operates bug free.  Within the limits of what the site does, it functions well.

You do not have to give a very long answer to this question, though I appreciate Basim's answer for its completeness.

It is just that I cannot tell what benchmark would need to be reached to meet your definition of technically functional.

Jazak Allah khair,

Tariq

[Akbar Rafiuddin]

Salamualaikum Everyone,

 

I have been following the thread of conversations and would like to initiate some level of dialogue outside of the google groups environment.  Tariq and I met at the Aqeedah class in NY and I am also in the IT field.  I think it might be a good idea to get everyone who is actively involved in this on a conference call and hash out the issues and challenges we face in stablizing something like this. 

 

Initially I can see this project being divided in 2 ways:

 

Technical - staging/development environment, database interaction and design, server architecture and source code.

 

Non Technical - marketing and administrative management.

 

Tariq, I think it might be a good idea to assign people to teams with team leaders to manage these separate aspects of this with everyone being somewhat involved in the final decisions.  I can be helpful in the database architecture and technology aspects of this.  I have seen too many projects put the cart before the horse and fall apart.  InshAllah this will not be the case with prayinjamat.com but I think we will need to put in the proper structure and discipline to make this as great as it can be bi'idnillah.
 

Jazak Allah Khair

Akbar (Tariq)