Carol's Cuties

Created December, 2011

Carol Whelan creates hand-made dolls and is a member of the International Art Doll Registry. She sells her dolls on Etsy and at craft fairs, but when she told people how to find her, she found they had trouble finding her Etsy page. She wanted a domain name that everyone could remember and a way to tell her customer base about her upcoming shows. She chose carolscuties.com.

Carol is technically literate enough to have established an Etsy store with no trouble, but she doesn't take joy in technology, it's a means to an end. I wanted to provide her with a content management system so she could update her own content, but one with a low-learning curve. I installed Wordpress and Custom Etsy Widget, a Wordpress plugin to show an Etsy user's latest products. I customized the theme a bit to show the dolls in the header rather than the sidebar, put in some requisite data, and was ready to turn it live. I made an appointment with Carol to show her how to use it and answer any questions she might have. In less than an hour, she was up and running, feeling confident in using her new site.