AWFS

The AWFS (Association of Woodworking and Furniture Suppliers) is the largest national trade association in the United States, representing the interests of the broad array of companies that supply the home and commercial furnishings industry. Their mission is to provide programs and services that benefit members and promote a growing and financially sound woodworking and furnishings industry.

In keeping with their organizational goals and mission statement, AWFS contacted Rhythm Interactive (RI) with a desire to create an industry educational resource application. AWFS had previously conceived the idea for this online application and had tried to create the application using an off-the-shelf application that was templatized for the easy creation of association websites.

The company that supported the association website system informed AWFS that their software could easily support the educational resource application that AWFS envisioned. After several months of planning and development, AWFS realized that the off-the-shelf software could not adequately support the application. AWFS contacted Rhythm Interactive and communicated their frustration in trying to develop the online application. At that time AWFS was disillusioned and not sure how to proceed.

After several meetings, AWFS was convinced that RI had a clear understanding of the purpose of the application and knew the best way to reach the goal of developing it. Several weeks were spent planning the system on paper and detailing the component parts as well as the datasets that would be used in the search and matching functions of the website. Within 6 weeks of working on the project, RI had built a functional prototype that enabled the team (including AWFS staff members) to interact with the application and work to test and debug the system.

After 90 days the application was well underway to being completed. After a fully functional Beta was developed, AWFS was able to have all educational committee members review the site. This was important, as feedback from this group enabled a higher understanding of users’ experiences when interacting with the site. Ultimately we were able to improve the site based on this feedback. This was terrific as users after the launch of the website commented on the ease of use and in several instances, on the very improvements that were made during the user testing trials.

Overall, the project was a complete success, as the application was developed according to AWFS’s desires and expectations. Please visit the online application at www.woodindustryed.org. If you have any questions about this project or about developing an online application, please call us at 949-215-1250.