United States Naval Institute

Goals
USNI publishes two magazines and a blog that are widely read by mid-grade and junior military personnel. In order to appeal to this readership and establish itself as a leader among military nonprofits, USNI wanted a design that not only reflected the mission of the organization, but also incorporated the latest in web technology. USNI delivers a lot of content to its readers and had to manually correlate similar articles. This activity was particularly challenging because different departments were responsible for managing their own content, making correlating content across those departments very complex.
Additionally, as with any members-based organization, USNI was challenged with keeping its records up to date. USNI had disparate databases that all had to be updated manually, taking hundreds of hours a year and impacting data accuracy. They needed a way to centralize their member information to keep all records continually current.
Finally, USNI articles had been posted on the Drudge Report on numerous occasions, causing significant impact to site load times and user experience during those events. USNI needed a site that was fully optimized with caching for high performance availability.
Requirements
USNI required a flexible, dynamic web platform that could support its unique business processes and provide superior service to its members. Unleashed Technologies worked with USNI to create a website design that would engage its readers and support its various requirements. This site design was required to deliver:

• An engaging, mobile-friendly design to give its tech savvy users a variety of ways to explore the USNI’s content
• Granular control over website content, including article placement, photo galleries, and content correlation across departments
• Superior search capabilities to deliver targeted content to its members
• A flexible advertising solution with the ability to serve third-party ads
• Site optimization for high performance availability to maintain great load speeds with 1,200 – 1,500 concurrent users
• Event registration functionality that was custom to the unique requirements of USNI and its members
• Integration into membership databases and USNI’s ERP system
• An eCommerce solution to support member registration and the online sale of photographic prints
• Integration of the Disqus commenting platform

Outcome
The United States Naval Institute has a sustainable web presence that’s focused on user experience, makes its valuable resources easy to find and access, reduces manual efforts and improves optimization.
Successes include:

• Eased content management with cross correlation of content
• Increased web engagement through an intuitive, mobile design, social enablement and information architecture
• Log-in capabilities for members to empower them to self-administer their own member profile, keeping their information updated at all times
• Integrated systems to eliminate manual updates of member information, saving an estimated $50,000 and resulting in a 400% increase in the number of updates made each year

• Improved revenue opportunity with a robust advertising platform
• A custom event management platform fully integrated with Drupal and UberCart for a seamless user experience with granular administrative control for USNI
• Sustained sub-two second load times even when under the pressure resulting from a Drudge Report hit with 2,200 – 2,500

concurrent visitors over several hours – outperforming others in the industry.
The return on investment (ROI) for the United States Naval Institute has been not only financial, but also in process automation, industry leadership, and a strong relationship with a company that’s invested themselves in making sure whatever decisions are made regarding the USNI web presence are the right ones.