Healing Horse Stables

Volunteer Web Development & Photography

Volunteering

I started with Healing Horse Stables in November 2023, shortly after being laid off. I wanted to use my winter months doing things that I’ve never tried before, so I found a local stable and applied to volunteer. Not long after my first volunteer shift, I ended up taking on a complete redesign of the website.

The original website was dated and had a lot of huge text paragraphs that were clogging up the flow of the experience. From looking through the documentation, I could see that whoever made this was fighting with the software. They probably had no web experience, and WordPress wasn’t making it easy for them.

Logo Inspiration

Initial Ideas

I made a color palette based on the original site, then gradually shifted the colors to get further and further from the original. Overall, I knew that browns and tans would be staple colors for this project.

Then, I met with the owner and organizer of the stable and showed her my ideas. She liked the color direction of Tea & Honey (above), and she added that teal and purple are important colors for their brand. The final color palette can be seen below.

After deciding some visual elements, I decided that now would be a good time to re-design the flow of the information. For this, I used Figma.

Working in WordPress

As someone who had never been in WordPress before, I was a bit nervous to get started. I knew that my client had the lowest subscription package, but I wasn’t aware of how deeply that would impact performance.

Without a higher subscription, we aren’t able to use any of the plugins that make WordPress function like an actual website. For example, users need a plugin for their form responses to be sent to their email. Without it, site owners have to log into WordPress to even see the form responses.

Problems & Solutions

Problem:

The Contact form on the website doesn’t notify the owner through email.

Solution:

Remove the contact form. Create a Google form (or any other 3rd party form) and add a link to it on the website. Example: “Contact Us” button on website leads directly to Google form.

Problem:

Clickable images only bring up larger versions of themselves, not any new image (Ex: wanting to be able to click on the horse’s portrait, then showing a pop-up with a bio of the horse)

Solution:

Make a slideshow for the horse bios. Not the most cutting-edge solution, but doesn’t involve plug-ins or trying to write code. Can always be changed later.

What I Learned

Working with a budget and without plugins is pretty tough in WordPress, which was very frustrating for me. People who cannot afford a higher subscription should not be punished, especially when web presence is so essential for small businesses and non-profits.