I designed this html5 responsive website for my current church; transferring content, birthing an iTunes-compatible podcast, empowering staff and leaders to post and update their own content, yet maintaining uniform quality.

After years of frustration as we waited for volunteer webmasters to do their web wizardry–only to have the content be too late to be effective–I cried out, “There has to be a better way!” God’s merciful answer to that plea was to point me to WordPress and responsive themes.

In the briefest terms, WordPress is a type of behind-the-scenes website  formatting program (used by more than 75 million websites worldwide).  Think of it as the house.  An HTML5 responsive theme is how the house is painted and finished on the outside–with one vital difference: this “outside” flexes based on whose driving by. That means whether a website is accessed via a computer, tablet or mobile phone, an HTML5 theme responds to the screen size and reflows the content (see illustration).  Users get a great view of your site without having to “pinch and zoom” constantly.

Some of the other useful features this website has include:

• content updates are as easy as writing an email and attaching a picture
• volunteers are able to post more than 50% of the content on our site
• rotating slider to draw attention to key items & events
• latest articles are always positioned near the top (just below slider), with thumbnails of featured images adding interest to the site
• front page is controlled by widgets (small easy-to-change items requiring little to no “coding”) allowing us to feature certain ministry areas or events easily
• social media icons are easily spotted without scrolling
• easily create colorful buttons and boxes to guide users to action points

click to visit fishersofmen.org, a website designed by Jerry McNamara