FluPortal.org

[Richelle Antczak McCuen]

Richelle Antczak McCuen wears at least three hats at WCBE in Columbus, OH. She’s the membership director, a substitute local music host, and the webkeeper. As webkeeper, it fell to her to put together the station’s H1N1 page. Here’s how she did it in two days flat, while still taking calls for her other jobs at ‘CBE.

Richelle told me that her GM, “always on the lookout for cool opportunites for the station,” suggested that a swine-flu page could engage and serve the station’s community. He pointed her to FluPortal as a guide.

Before starting in on any of the technical stuff, Richelle decided she “had to know what was important to the user… not just what would fit in the page layout.” To figure that out, she asked herself what she, as a new mom, would want to see on the page. She decided to provide basic H1N1 information, links to more in-depth resources, and good local tips and hotlines. She recognized, too, that self-updating widgets would keep the page from looking static — and that people like to learn things through social-media channels (like Twitter) that “aren’t 100% educational and are enjoyable to use.” Richelle said that this process of sifting through the options was “really a huge portion” of the two-day project.

Next she built the page. Richelle says she’s “not a web designer — in no way a master.” She considers herself “more of a maintenance person” who knows basic html and javascript but no complicated CSS. This, she said, was enough to let her create her page using the simpler tips from FluPortal. She felt she was able to match the “level of sophistication that people expect” from WCBE’s site. She was also able to give the page the feeling of change and momentum she was looking for (by using news widgets).

As a final check, Richelle ran her H1N1 page by WCBE’s news team “because they’re on the front lines of the story.” The newsroom gave its content a thumbs-up.

If you too are at a small station with limited resources, but you’d like to build an H1N1 page, check out our get-started guides. Richelle felt they “gave [her] the tools” she needed.