The Plateforme francophone du volontariat [Volunteering Platform for French-speakers] (PFV) is a not-for-profit organisation whose goal is to encourage and facilitate the practice of volunteering. In addition to this promotional aspect, it also defends the interests of volunteers in French-speaking Belgium.
It is a pluralist structure, composed of both federal associations and small- and medium-sized associations. It carries out its actions in partnership with its members and the volunteers who work in one of its four centres, in Brussels, Namur, Mons, and Nivelles.
As part of this project, the PFV entrusted us with the task of taking over their old site made using Drupal 7 and changing it both from a visual point of view (redesign of the UI) and also functionally (improvement of the UX, the user experience).
In October 2019, we replaced it with a brand new iteration made using Drupal 8, with many new features. Among them were: the management of organisations, members, and their roles, the addition of a dedicated space for the publication of geolocalised classified ads, and a library of tools for volunteers.
All these improvements were discussed during workshops with the client, during which we also worked together on the user experience (UX), various mock-ups (UI), and SEO.
As part of the redesign of the site, various solutions were implemented - some of which were particularly complex. First of all, we tackled the PFV members' directory by adding a search field and an alphabetical listing to it. Each member now has a dedicated page that details their contact information and ensures the visibility of their personal website. When registering, each member must fill out a dedicated form designed by us, which is then sent by email to the applicant and to the PFV managers. Once his/her registration has been validated, he/she acquires the status of member and benefits from a private account.
Among the new features, the management of associations proved to be particularly difficult, especially on the back-office side. When registering, each member must be associated with an organisation. He/she must therefore be able to join an existing one or create a new one. Without this it is impossible for him/her to publish ads or locations.
In addition, these members have different roles within each association: some, for example, can post classifieds, others can add locations and link them to these classifieds, etc. It was therefore necessary to take into account this strict hierarchy (defined by the association itself) and to allow it to manage it easily through the integration of the Drupal 8 Group module.
This fine-tuned management of members and their roles within the various organisations was not the only challenge encountered, as the site also offers geolocation of the volunteer classifieds. The latter are now listed by default according to the place from which you visit the site, but you can also specify your search using a keyword (which will be effective in all the content of the classifieds) or according to your interests (categories implemented with Drupal classifications). This interactive map was developed using React libraries.
Another major part of the PFV website is the tools. These are pages referencing links (web pages) or media (videos, documents, etc.), and offer useful content to anyone interested in volunteering. As these tools touch on various subjects, they are classified by categories which can be sorted via a series of checkboxes (implemented through the Facet module). In addition to the categories, you can also filter your search results by media type or by year of publication, and refine it using a text field, thus simplifying access to the most relevant documents.
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