Working Knowledge

This working knowledge is a collaboration of articles about urban farming, how to create a feasibility study, background information about SEED Wayne, and information on successful websites/ website projects.  We will use this to give us a good foundation for our project so we do not start researching a subject we know nothing about.  When it comes to writing our feasibility study we will not necessarily use any of it in a specific part of the report but it will be a foundation for the entire report.

Wiki Sources

     The secondary sources that we gathered from wikipedia will help provide us with useful information about web design effectiveness and urban farming goals. The wikipedia page "Web Design" talks about how to design an effective and organized webpage. This will help us determine a few problems with SEED Wayne's current site. There is also a link to a page called "Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology" that provides procedures and guidelines on evaluating websites. This source will also help us find more issues with SEED Wayne's website. The wikipedia page "Urban Gardening" states some of the goals of urban gardening which will help us better understand SEED Wayne's goals.

Current News Articles

The first article was about how Detroit is trying to use it's vacant lots and create urban gardens. There are more than 1500 gardens around the city. A lot of citizens now have gardens in their backyard, since it is now allowed to sell your own food. A business man named John Hantz proposed an idea to the city to buy 300 acres of land for $300 per acre. The plan is to plant trees to help with the cities aesthetics. They also plan to grow fruit trees, those would provide jobs and generate income. General Motors and Ford are also supporting this green initiative. Greening of Detroit employs 200 out of 2000 applicants to work during the summer to take care of the of farms gardens and parks around the city. This article is useful because it emphasize the possible benefits of urban gardens throughout the city.  They can not only feed the hungry, but also provide jobs for the unemployed. The website could also list all the known gardens around the city (and maybe Michigan) for the commuters that attend Wayne State. They could go to a garden closer to their house and still receive fruits and vegetables at a great price. 

The second article talks about a group of University of Iowa student who came and visited Detroit for Spring Break. They wanted to help address urban decay. They ended up volunteering for the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative. They interviewed the founder Tyson Gersh. Gersh told them that he grew up in Ann Arbor. He fell in love with the city when he was 20 years old. His parents told him they do not go to Detroit because it is unsafe. Tyson bought a lot with a vacant house and turned it into an urban garden. They get majority of their help from volunteers. They sell what they produce at a suggested price or whatever you can afford to the community. This article could be useful to SEED Wayne for outreach. Many community gardens thrive through the help of volunteers. If the SEED Wayne website was more reliable it could receive a higher rate of volunteers, not only for themselves but for other gardens around the city.

Website Info/Comparison

Other Urban Gardening Organizations

Everything can be compared in today's world. That is what is used to measure a certain standard on how things get done and how effectively they get done. This will be crucial to our feasibility report I think. We are going to gather as much useful information from other university urban gardening websites to check out different things like layout, design, and ideas to see what works and what doesn't. This research will help us focus on certain areas to help improve and the benefits of improving these areas.

Benefits of Good Web Design

This in my opinion will be the meat of our persuasiveness.  After all, it is the entire purpose of our report.  These sources show us the benefits of a properly created website, the minimal costs, and provide an understanding of why it is important to communities and the organizations image and goals.  The information will help us provide credibility and help us persuade SEED to change their website.  This may also lead us to an obvious choice, leading to a proposal.