fle-internal/fle-site — pull request #42 by dylanjbarth (2014-03-06 01:51:19+00:00)
Title: Consolidate all user-facing KA Lite website stuff into FLE site

FYI all: this PR is more for discussion than for merging. It's just a prototype. See my explanation below.

Ok, I know this seems a little crazy. Take a deep breath. Now let it out slowly, and proceed with an open mind ;) Vamos!

Here's the thinking: I was trying to steal ideas from other nonprofits to redesign the KA Lite home page. I looked around at
- http://www.worldreader.org/
- http://www.worldpossible.org/
- http://alliance-for-africa.org/
- http://www.charitywater.org/
- http://www.donorschoose.org/
- a few others, but you get the point

If they have a platform or a product, it's advertised on the site, within the context of the organization as a whole. I think there's a couple of reasons we have kept two websites for so long (kalite.leq and leq)

1. KA Lite came first, so it had a website way before FLE (and the FLE site in the beginning was very simple)
2. KA Lite has an online component (data syncing) so we definitely need it to have a dedicated URL/database so users can login and see data/create profiles.

Now, I think we're at a place to simplify. What I'm proposing is that we consolidate all user facing information on the KA Lite page into the FLE site. This means no more duplication of contact info, only one place to subscribe to the newsletter, no more confusion about social media accounts, one clear donate page, one clear news page (future plans for FLE homepage), clear branding of FLE as the leader developers and maintainers of KA Lite -- the list goes on!!

It also gives us a way to simplify the workflow for users interested in downloading KA Lite. See my screenshot below of a sample interface for an idea of how that can happen. (specifically look at the titles of the side navigation)

![image](https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/1319950/2341080/bf921b42-a4d0-11e3-8c5b-60ce1e351187.png)

Ok @dylanjbarth , that sounds like a reasonable solution, but I've got you here --

* __what about people who need to log in to KA Lite central to check on their online data?__

good q. I propose uber simplifying the KA Lite page to turn it into "KA Lite Analytics Hub" or something of that nature. It's only a login page, with a bunch of ways to click through back to LEQ.org (Alternative to this would be a automatic redirect to leq.org/kalite with a link there on how to access ka lite analytics. Anyway, this would preserve current functionality, and allow us to separate out central analytics from the core KA Lite product (thinking ahead to conversations about making that feature premium).

* __I'm really going to miss the KA lite site though__

Me too kid, me too.

* __Blahhhh rabble rabble rabble.__

Wat.

@wangguan59 @bcipolli @jamalex @rtibbles whatchu think