Making things easier for members to find and access on the web was the main concern for the team charged with redesigning DLIonline.org. The team completely overhauled the site with the intention of attracting non-member professional fabric care business owners to the Institute and making membership benefits much simpler to find, understand, and access.
Over the course of about nine months, a team of DLI Directors, staff, and an outside design firm created the current version of DLIonline.org. The team focused on usability and the user experience, simplifying every aspect of using it as much as possible.
The redesigned Members Only section allows easier access to all of DLI’s membership services in a more attractive fashion. The site also follows DLI’s overall strategy of focusing on the five major areas of Advocacy, Expertise, Knowledge, Community, Savings. “Focusing on these five critical areas of members support demonstrate DLI’s commitment to helping members succeed,” said Mary Scalco, DLI’s CEO. “By providing these key solutions for members, DLI is looking out for their businesses and always looking for ways to help members improve their businesses.”
DLI launched the first incarnation of its website in the fall of 1996. “Looking back over some captures of our previous websites it is easy to tell that this site has come a long way,” said Harry Kimmel, APR, DLI’s Communications Director. “The site grew up with the internet, from a yellow-pages style bare-bones listing built in a table to the dynamic, comprehensive site we have now.”
“Our goal is to help members find the information they need as easily as possible while demonstrating the power of DLI membership to garment care professionals who haven’t joined DLI,” Kimmel said.
DLI’s website redesign team included input from all members of DLI’s Board of Directors and staff. “This was truly an all-hands-on-deck project and we are grateful for the input we received from our volunteer Board members – who are primarily members of DLI – our hard-working staff, and the development team,” Scalco said. “We believe this is a major improvement over our previous version and we hope members will agree it is much easier to use while promoting the Institute to non-members.”