The International Youth Exchange (IYE) is an organization which enables youth and parents in the airline industry an opportunity to connect with other families around the world. Once a family has created a profile, they can request matches with other families and youth on the site. After a match request has been accepted, the families are connected and can contact each other directly to organize a youth exchange.
Working closely with the IYE staff, we were able to develop a robust and exciting Drupal web app to best serve its users. IYE supplied the branding, video and graphics. Deck Fifty constructed the app and migrated their old data to the new platform - users experienced no downtime and were able to login to the new system, view other users, edit their profile, and easily make payments through a streamlined checkout process. The post launch response has been fantastic - users are enjoying the new profile gallery, favorites lists, and ability to request matches directly on site!
Drupal
Drupal was the CMS framework of choice for this build as it allows the development of robust functionality, while staying within the client's budget. The previous site was built on Drupal 6, so the staff at IYE were already very familiar with the management interface and features.
Challenges & Solutions
Promotional showcase: Providing new users the ability to find information and understand the entire exchange process was at the forefront of our structural development decisions. This includes great imagery, testimonials and helpful informational pages.
User interface: A smooth and easy to use interface is a make or break feature for a site of this nature. Allowing users to easily view other profiles, request matches and make payment took plenty of thought to develop, and the end result is nothing short of amazing.
Admin interface: With thousands of users, matches, favorites, and orders, providing a clear and simple to use interface for IYE staff makes the daily management tasks a breeze. IYE is able to easily view all the actions taking place with a custom developed event log.
Key modules/theme/distribution used
Community contributions
Throughout the course of development comments and solutions were submitted against bug reports for various contributed Drupal modules.