The Omaha Jitterbugs are a fantastic organization and a danciful group of people. It’s my dance home. One of my martial arts teachers once told me that you owe your art everything you receive from it. It’s a principle I try to carry with me wherever I go, to pay back the good that I’ve got. And so when I had the opportunity to design a new website for the Omaha Jitterbugs I felt very excited. I could use my powers for good and help a wonderful organization and all the hard-working people there have a web presence that would show all who visited their vibrancy and spirit.

My broad goals for the new website were:

Look awesome
Easy to use

And more specifically:

Direct new dancers to Get Started resources right away
Keep an active calendar and class schedule
Integrate their very effective use of Facebook
Showcase their cornerstone night, Jitterbugs Night Out every Friday
Provide a headquarters for their volunteer team Jive
Have a bright, somewhat retro look, that feels exciting and classy

I am not primarily a web programmer but I do have ever more growing experience configuring WordPress to fit purposes other than a blog. I love it as a CMS. So my plan was to build the website with WordPress, customize a premium theme from Elegant Themes, and configure it to fit the needs of the Jitterbugs.

Before I got online, I spent time sketching out an organizational structure for the website and talking to the people who’d be using the site the most. Then I gathered ideas for color schemes, fonts and typography options, and all the copy I would need (and there was ample, well-written copy already at the old site). I began the build first by installing and configuring WordPress without worrying too much about what it looked like.

Elegant Themes already have some great functionality built in, but I did want to incorporate a few plug-ins:

Calendar by Kieran O’Shea which allows users to easily style and manage multiple calendars and events.
Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk which provides easy installation and maintenance of GA
Google Analytics Dashboard by Carson McDonald which installs a great dashboard widget
WP-Table Reloaded by Tobias Bathage, a nice plug-in for maintaining and styling large tables – vital for the volunteer area HQ.