The American Federation of Teachers represents more than 1.2 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers, paraprofessionals and other school support employees, higher education faculty, nurses and other healthcare workers, and state and local government employees.

The AFT hired Fig Leaf Software to create a new online identity, one that would reinforce the mission of the American Federation of Teachers:  "To improve the lives of our members and their families, to give voice to their legitimate professional, economic and social aspirations, to strengthen the institutions in which we work, to improve the quality of the services we provide, to bring together all members to assist and support one another and to promote democracy, human rights and freedom in our union, in our nation and throughout the world".

The AFT had identified that the existing site was organized for someone who knows how the AFT headquarters is segmented, NOT for the average member/visitor.  In addition, there was no way to post news on the homepage without an extensive amount of work.  An AFT staffer was required to find an image, someone would need to write promo text, then a staffer would need to go into the Web server to modify the page).  The AFT also felt that the existing public site was very text heavy.  With the redesign, the AFT desired to have more feature areas along with opportunities for images, icons, and pages that could relate to specific topic areas. 

Following Fig Leaf's proven design methodology, the creative team was able to fully define the scope of the engagement along with the goals for the new AFT public site. Fig Leaf worked with the AFT stakeholders to create a new site that:

• Represents AFT members as a union of professionals
• Provides quality services and resources to members and the public

The new site saw the launch of the new AFT logo which introduced consistency to the online and offline branding. The new site has been built to be informational; sharing news and reports with members, researchers, and parents while at the same time, encouraging younger teachers and prospective members to join the AFT and have an interest in the labor movement. Member polls conducted at the beginning of the redesign phase showed that AFT members are among the most computer/Internet savvy of any members in the labor movement. This provided Fig Leaf with the ability to develop a balanced site which is conservative and reflects the organizations’ mission, while offering extensive functionality as well as a flair for younger users.

The professional new design is consistent throughout and was created to integrate with the organization’s content management system. Among the features of the newly designed site are:

• Many areas for news and images
• Search functionality on every page
• Easy menu and breadcrumb navigation on every page
• Easy access to constituency areas of the site, each represented with a unique color throughout their respective sections
• Latest news
• Printer-friendly version on each page
• Email a friend option on each page
• Bookmark this page option on each page