Our next feature in the “website shout out” series is the wonderful website for Marquette ASDA, located in Milwaukee, WI. I had the pleasure of speaking with Kyle Everson ’13, the MU legislative liaison and webmaster as well as David Hamm ’14, webmaster, and the Class of 2014 website’s webmaster. Here is a little insight as to how they have developed an impressive website from the ground up.
1) What was your inspiration for the site originally?
Kyle Everson, ’13: MU ASDA had been talking about creating a website for a while, but it seemed like they were just spinning their wheels. I had a little experience with websites, because I had created a website for my class. I then did a little research and played around with apple’s iWeb. iWeb was extremely easy to use and I was able to find answers to anything I wanted to do with Google searches. My goal with the ASDA site was mostly to create a place to host individual class websites, share information on ASDA events and have a place that we could allow for people to pay online for items.
2) I liked your web design and the links to the different classes websites. How do you keep these updated?
Kyle Everson, ’13: The class of 2013 is the site that I run, and was the first “class website” at Marquette. I have arranged it so that individual classes run their websites, they are just hosted and linked on our main website. The class of 2014 website is entirely run by David Hamm ’14.
3) How did you go about creating the new design of the website?
David Hamm, ’14: My primary goal was to create a website in which each visitor could navigate with minimal effort. After referring to my collection of websites that I bookmark for inspiration, I came up with the conclusion that I’d want two navigation bars–one for the main website and a second for MUSoD-related links. To add a stylistic element that reflects what Marquette ASDA is, I made a translucent collage of past events in which Marquette ASDA participated. Overall, everything graphical was designed in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and compiled in Apple’s iWeb program.
4) What is your favorite aspect of working on the website & being a part of ASDA?
Kyle Everson, ’13: My favorite aspect of the website was the ability to expand individual class websites and gaining knowledge of websites. I used the information I learned with the ASDA site to create my wedding website! My favorite part of ASDA is meeting dental students from around the country and having fun at ASDA social events.
David Hamm, ’14: Working on the ASDA website has been tons of fun. Graphic design has always been one of my favorite hobbies: I’ve created multiple logos, wallpapers, etc. whenever the inspiration comes to me. By being able to combine this hobby with my interest in technology, I was able to offer my talents to help out ASDA, and I haven’t looked back. With this new website design, I am always on the lookout to further improve the Marquette ASDA website, as well as enjoying learning new ideas to possibly incorporate.
5) What advice would you give for other chapters looking to strengthen their communications?
David Hamm, ’14: Twitter is a powerful networking tool. With the increasing mobile market, people want their news quickly and briefly, and Twitter does just that. Each “tweet” is limited to 140 characters, so each user must be precise and to the point. On my class’s website, I embedded a Twitter widget to let my classmates know when new study guides, notes, etc. have been uploaded to the site, as well as to notify them of any important news. Twitter offers this feature for free, and you can customize the widget’s size, color, among other things.
Kyle Everson, ’13: Well, we are still new at this, but I would say the most useful thing that we have done with the website is allowing individual class’s to host sites on marquetteasda.org. Google Calendar is also great to share events!
Thanks guys, and keep up the great work!
Interested in having the hard work of your website featured? Submit your request right here.
~Brittany Sonnichsen, Connecticut ’12, chair, ASDA Council on Communications
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