Client interview

Note

My (shorian's) notes from the in-class interview with Poul roleplaying as client.
This is the closest thing to a transcript my fingers were up to producing.
I added some initial thoughts on implementation in {Curly braces}

• What Poul has so far?
  • "Welcome to the Great Outdoors" website
  • Family was interested in creating a website for family and friends to look at the different places he's in/hikes he's been on
  • Noticed big interest, people wanted to see more about the places he's been to
  • Here to see if we can make the site better so he can interact with people visiting my site, and they're able to get information about the site
  • May eventually want to monetize it to keep it running
  • Currently hosted on GitHub Pages

CALVIN: You mentioned initially that this was for friends and family...
POUL: Family were telling me that when they shared, it piqued their interest. They've never been to washington state, and wanted to know more. Number of visitors started increasing.
CALVIN: Prospective tourists, then?
POUL: Yeah. I thought, could I monetize my coverage of the various sites here in washington state, and share information on how to get there, and their regulations/rules? license requirements to hike those places
Laura: Maps/directions?
POUL: Yeah, that would be great.
LAURA: Important to know passes needed, clear instructions. Do you have photos of these hikes?
POUL: I took photos, but always had a hard time uploading them to the website. Chipmunk, Mt. Ranier
CLAYTON: I have a question
POUL: That's another thing, I don't have a button to get back to the home page.
When I say "climb the mountain", I've been to more than one mountain, but only have a page for Mt. Ranier.
CLAYTON: Are you zeroing in on a specific county or region as the PNW?
POUL: No, just whatever I want to go to. But yeah, I like that idea where, because as a washington state resident I know where things are, but if I was out of state, it would be good to know which county a location is in.
Calvin: Integrate google maps?
POUL: Yeah, I like that. I use gmaps to trace my route, see how many miles
ELENI: What type of design/aesthetics/visuals are you looking for? Pictures in the background, a slideshow?
POUL: I don't have an artistic eye, so I relied on my friend to put this together. I was hoping to get something that looks more professional.
ELENI: Minimalistic? Whole bunch of information?
POUL: Lots of information, but not too busy
Bennet: You said you use other websites to find information - other websites you really like the look of?
POUL: I get information on trails/passes from government websites. I also use youtube to see if other people have hiked there. I look up the weather to see if it's a good place, so I would use the weather channel to see if I should expect inclement weather.
BENNET: Different areas of the site for different purposes? Tips and tricks, weather?
ELENI: Interested in making it more accessible for external links? Weather, news, things like that
POUL: When you go to different links, it would be nice to have images actually reside on my site. I know that can be a bit of a challenge, but if I could at least have another...
POUL: Open to different color schemes. Want something more modern or professional-looking
ELENI: Earlier talked about monetization - adding ads related to website?
POUL: Yeah, related to the content that I have on the site.
BENNET: Content you would not like to have on the site?
POUL: Any type of hate, PG-type material to share with my family.
ELENI: Would you like a comment section on your pictures, or little facts on your website?
POUL: If I could have people respond to that that would be pretty cool too. {Embed Disqus comments?}
BENNET: Do you like github, or do you want to host it somewhere else with your own domain?
POUL: Yeah, github has a limit on the size of a website, and I want my own domain.
MEGAN: I see there's a lot of photos on here. Other content you want to host? Blogs, videos of places you've been?
POUL: Yeah I was thinking blogs and some videos. I was thinking I'd upload my videos to Youtube and include them on my site {youtube embeds}. I would like to have the map on the site so they don't have to go somewhere else.
CALVIN: Accessibility vs monetization?
POUL: Prefer accessibility, monetization was an afterthought {tip jar/ko-fi/patreon?}
someone: Do you need other languages?
POUL: Not now, but I don't want to close that door
BENNET: Affiliate marketing with hiking brands?
POUL: That would be fun, if I could do that.
BENNET: What timeline are you looking at to have this completed by?
POUL: Thank you for asking. March 17th.
BENNET: Will you need us to provide maintenance going forward, or will you be handling that yourself?
POUL: Doesn't include maintenance because I don't know how to do the web stuff, but I want to be able to upload pictures. Changes, security, I don't know how to do that.
BENNET: What's your budget looking like?
POUL: Only $3k total right now.
CLAYTON: Is this for personal use or business use?
POUL: Currently it's my personal project, but eventually I'd like to monetize it to pay for itself. I'll be extremely happy if that happens. Ultimate dream is that this website supports me, right?

(end of meeting)