The Solutions Journal

The Solutions Journal is a non-profit print and online publication, a hybrid peer-reviewed journal and popular magazine that publishes bold and groundbreaking ideas designed to help solve the world’s ecological, social, and economic problems. Its mission is to provide an effective outlet for thought leaders and influencers to share their creative ideas to reduce the world’s most pressing issues.

As Solutions is meant to inspire, influence, and invite world-bettering action, it needs to be effective and efficient in disseminating ideas. Osky felt that the Solutions Journal needed a better way of presenting posts, discussions, forums, and features to further its mission and contribute better to society. It needed a more enhanced user interface and a more user-friendly way of presenting facts and statistics—for how could they get people into taking action when it’s outdated, inaccessible on some devices, not immediately shareable, and clunky? Osky took the liberty to inspect the website—an old one, built in Drupal—and overhauled it to come up with a more seamless, straightforward pages.

The brief

To overhaul the old Solutions website that was built on Drupal, and come up with a better design that would invite more shareholders, users, and subscribers. The website was not entirely user-friendly and reader-friendly: the look was clunky, and the design needed major improvement like better and readable fonts. Osky also thought the carousel was in dire need of overhaul, from the navigation to the archaic design.

Features

• Wordpress CMS installation and setup
• Integrated faceted search/relevance (Advanced Search)
• Subscription module with shopping cart integrated with PayPal and eWAY
• Customer, Product and Order management module
• Subscribe to newsletter module
• Commenting module (to enforce users to login to their account before they can comment)
• Social media integration and sharing with desired social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook and others)

The outcome

First, Osky improved the UI of the Solutions website, with drastic changes in design: smoother carousel navigation, more cohesive and coherent presentation of features, and more visible sections. For backend development, Osky made sure Solutions would be equipped with a more integrated and intelligent search bar, better Customer/Product/Order management module, and a more solid system to promote and sell the journal’s subscriptions. Even a more responsible commenting module was installed. Lastly, to improve The Solutions Journal’s reach among its readers and stakeholders, Osky improved its social media integration and sharing system.