Redesigning the main website in late 2005

The content we have up is close to what we want, now we need to figure
out how to convince someone to read it.

There are three [four] main audiences we're aiming at:

1. Event organizers (and other potential clients). Festival and
conference organizers are going to be looking at our site, we want to
convince them that we can help their event. Convey: We are
professionals, our work has helped similar events, lots of their peers
have used our system and came away happy.
2. Travelers. When people come to our site after seeing us at an
Event's website, we want to quickly and conveniently get them to the
page to see their event's carpool system, or send them to advice about
traveling green. Convey: provide useful information quickly. Maybe
get some of them curious enough to think about getting involved or sign
up on the newsletter.
*4. We want to turn some of the Travelers and Allies into people who buy from our allies at /greeneconomy
3. Allies and Volunteers. Convey: We're trying to save the planet,
this is a great place to get involved.

My first impression is that a "trail" makes sense, where people are
encouraged (not forced) to pick one of the three[four] above tracks, and then
at the bottom of each page are one, two or three possible "next"
buttons. Our site is very much "new territory," many users come to our
page without a clear idea of what we are doing, and we're doing a lot,
and navigation is inadequate: it's like showing up in a new city
without knowing what's where, so who cares what the street names are.
It's better to say "that way if you're interested in that, this way if
you're interested in this..."

There are two potentially-separate roles to the redesign:
1) design elements & the look of the main page
2) content & navigation.

Given that no one will be at this full time, I'm very much in favor of
modularizing the effort, building a new design without requiring the
content changes to be done at the same time.

I looked at your portfolio, and at your suggestions, and everything looks great! Your suggestions are in line with what I was thinking,

* I've already collected some quotes, intending to put them in an introductory email to potential clients. I've also thought about having quotes in the margin of each page... rather than going to a "quotes page", you'd just see little bits of happy success as you perused the website.
* I've always intended to have "tracks" across the website. Asking people if they are a conference organizer, festival organizer, environmental organization or ally, individual traveler, or individual activist. It's not obvious enough yet where to go next.

One other focus-point, related to point 5 about making carpooling more fun, SpaceShare basically has three audiences:

1. Event organizers. Much of the website was designed with them in mind - convincing event organizers is the real key to success. We need to come across as professional, focused on their bottom line and their event.
2. End-Users/Carpoolers. It might be counter-intuitive, but this is the least important group for the website, because they rarely get to the main website. The event organizers announce carpooling to the end-users on the event website, that's where much of the enthusiasm about carpooling needs to shine. The greening guide www.spaceshare.com/green is where we're guiding them. ** New note: now tending to guide them also to /greeneconomy
3. Volunteers & Activists.