Behind the scenes – Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society web site

This month’s “Behind the scenes” takes us to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

1/ What were the main goals and objectives for the web site in terms of functionality and how it would help the organization?
Previous versions of cpaws.org were done page by page in Dreamweaver.  But as a national organization with 13 regional chapters, it was getting impossible for us to update the site that way.  So we’ve moved everything to a CMS.  We’ve also moved from a static, brochure-style site to a more interactive one with features like comments,  Google maps, and tags.  It’s not quite Web 2.0, but it’s getting there.

2/ What tool(s) did you use (CMS system, etc.?) and what approaches were you considering before you made your final decision.
I tried dozens of CMSs, but wasn’t able to find one that could integrate our 13 chapter sites, national sites, and offer bilingual functionality.  In the end, I went with my old favourite, Movable Type. It’s technically a blogging tool, but there’s a stable, secure publishing system beneath. I threw out the default templates and made new ones to do just what we needed to do.  The new MT4 makes creating full-blown sites much easier than earlier versions — and they’ll be going open source.

3/ What are your favourite web developer tools and software that you like to use (web editors, cms, graphics, video)?
I have a soft spot for Movable Type because it’s so extensible.  Firefox has extensions that provide every web-development tool imaginable.  Beyond that, I use the usual tools — Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.

4/ Favourite offline activities
In my other life, I’m a freelance illustrator — and I’m terrible about updating my own site!

Sue Novotny is currently the Communications Officer for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.