We decided to do something different at the MuseWeb 2019 conference in Boston this April. How many times have you been to a conference and learned a lot, but, by the time you got home, weren’t able to put it into practice? We wanted to flip the script. We wanted to hack away in the exhibit hall, slinging code and fixing websites on the fly. Enter the Happiness Bar – an opportunity for free help for anyone who wanted it. Our goal was to make it super easy for conference attendees to implement changes that would make their site faster, more secure, and more accessible.
Over three days at the conference, our squad of developers worked with attendees from large and small institutions. Most sessions started with a digital therapy session. What were their current aches and pains? What made them unhappy when they looked at their website? What wasn’t working? What were simple things, that if fixed, would make their lives better? An audit of the site was performed, using Google’s free Lighthouse tool. This rated the site on speed, security, and accessibility with specific issues that could be addressed. Alley recommends everyone try out Google Lighthouse on their own site – it is a great way to quickly assess and find easy to solve issues.
After the analysis we dove straight in to fixing top priority issues first and then slowly working down the list. When we could access the code underlying the site, we made changes right there. If we couldn’t, we created and emailed a specific, itemized list of what should be fixed when they got back from the conference. Afterwards, we ran the Lighthouse scan again, confirming that our changes were successful and the scores had increased.
The Happiness Bar was a huge success for us. We wanted to take a chance to try something new that would be helpful immediately to those that might not have the time, capabilities, or finances to fix their website. We’ve stayed in touch with a few of the people we worked with. One even responded:
I wanted to thank you all again for your help at MW. You all did for me what would have taken a couple days for me to do.
We’re happy to be hanging out with museums at MuseWeb 2019 (and other events!) and helping institutions of all scales with their digital issues. We’re so excited to see everyone next year in Los Angeles, and lend more help where we can.
Alley is committed to amplifying the unique voices, experiences, and career advancement of women, black, indigenous, people of color, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities. It is our responsibility to address the shortcomings in the technology industry so we can begin to include and diversify not only our employee base, but also the communities we invest
2020 was certainly not anyone’s favorite year. The way many of us live and work changed totally, and that was no different for us here at Alley. We usually take this time to share some of our successes and exciting announcements for the year, but instead we’ll be looking back at some ways we, and our clients, tried to make the world a little better in 2020.
You’ve heard Alley is a company committed to building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, and are wondering what actions we’ve taken. Over the past year we have focused on supporting equity at all intersections and improving team member learning and development as part of a long-term sustainability plan to embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) efforts in all areas of Alley’s business.
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