Thy Kingdom Come is a global prayer campaign with a fixed ten-day window in May. The date can’t move, so whatever is built has to work, in seven languages, from day one. The campaign had commissioned a new Drupal website and an Android app to be built by an external development team. There was no one in-house with capacity to test the website and app, turn what they wanted into specifications or move the multi-lingual website content over to the new platform. I came in to fill those gaps.
Seeing the site the way visitors do
Before any content was moved over, I tested the new site on desktop and mobile and reported 75 issues to the development team. The build was strong, but every build has problems. In this case, early on, images that displayed fine when logged in as an admin were missing for everyone else, and the language switcher bounced back to English for anyone not logged in. Problems like these are easy to miss when everyone building and checking a site is signed in as an administrator.
Each issue went into a shared log with steps to reproduce, a priority from one to three, and a named owner, so the developers could act without having to ask questions. I worked with them to prioritise, specified fixes where the right answer wasn’t obvious, and then re-tested every fix.
Testing also meant asking whether pages worked for the people using them. For example, I recommended that resource pages carry descriptive text rather than just a PDF download. That helps search visibility, and it helps older visitors and people on limited data know what they’re downloading before they commit.
Specifying what was missing
Some problems weren’t bugs, but gaps. I specified new features to resolve them, including:
- an automated Videos page that pulled in video from elsewhere on the site
- a full-width, responsive video embed for videos placed within text or in groups
- a clear “Translated by Google” notice on pages translated automatically
Translating between the two sides
I also acted as the go-between for the developers and the organisations staff, so the charity got the look and usability they wanted without taking up much of the team’s time during their busy pre-launch period.
The hardest task was the map on the Light Up The World page, which shows people’s “pledges”. It needed enough stars to look good without becoming unusable, and it mattered because the campaign’s social media strategy depended on people sharing their pledge.
The app
The Android app was the tougher of the two builds. I tested it, reported multiple bugs, and tested the fixes. I spent time going back and forth with the developers until the issues were resolved ahead of the campaign.
The result
The whole project went live on time, on a deadline that couldn’t move. The website is still the one Thy Kingdom Come uses today. Also I got to subtitle the Pope!
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