Site 1   Norwich University — Hitting the River

Visit Hitting the River

role
  • site and content strategy
  • architecture
  • developer
  • visual design
summary
We decided to attempt a magazine-style feature from both a design and narrative perspective. We wanted to emulate a print experience, but still ensure our online visitors were able to easily move through the story. Hands-on learning is at the heart of the Norwich educational experience, and this approach allowed us to use a single example to show visitors how we make good on that claim. We deliberately broke some rules—article length in particular—so we could analyze traffic statistics and see how long the average reader would stay on the mini-site.
audience
The primary audiences are prospective students and their parents.
features
  • Faux magazine-style layout, complete with a center crease.
  • Prominent, quality imagery.
  • A true narrative story, heavy on “you are there’ descriptive vignettes and quotes from participants.

Site 2   University of Denver — Concerts, Conferencing & Events

Visit Concerts, Conferencing & Events

role
  • site strategy
  • architecture
  • navigation
  • developer
  • interaction design
summary
This site features university venues available for rental, ranging in size from a boardroom to a concert arena. The site also promotes events held in the two primary venues — The Newman Center for the Performing Arts and Magness Arena. Potential event attendees can quickly find in-depth information about upcoming headliner acts, locate parking, puchase tickets, view panoramic images of primary venues, and view building floorplans and seating diagrams. My intention was to provide potential ticket buyers with immediate access to all appropriate resources without delaying parties interested in renting university space.
audience
The primary audience is the general public. Secondary audiences include current students, event and concert promoters, civic and business groups, private parties, and engaged couples.
features
  • Keyboard and screen-reader accessible, list-based dynamic menus created with CSS & javascript that degrade gracefully regardless of what device visitors use to access the site.
  • Tours featuring QuickTime panoramic images.
  • Informational pages designed to import seamlessly into the university's distributed calendar.

Site 3   University of Denver — The Women’s College

Visit The Womens College

role
  • project manager
  • architecture
  • navigation
  • developer
  • interaction design
summary
This site serves is the college's primary medium for promoting its programs to prospective students and engaging current students. The redesign called for creation of a “softer”, more welcoming design. Images and testimonials of alumni allow prospective students to picture women like themselves — and themselves — succeessfully earning a degree or certificate. Audience-based, highly visible navigation was added to the home page to give prospective students immediate and obvious access to appropriate information. This redesign's launch coincided with construction of the college's new home, The Chambers Center, which is dedicated to the advancement of women.
audience
The primary audience is prospective students. Secondary audiences include current students, career counselors, and members of groups dedicated to the advancement of women.
features
  • CSS design, with tables used only for information suitable for display as tabular data, such as course schedules and event calendars.
  • Keyboard and screen-reader accessible, list-based dynamic menus created with CSS & javascript that degrade gracefully regardless of what device visitors use to access the site.
  • On launch, this site complied with Section 508 and Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act, met WAI accessibility requirements, and featured W3C-valid HTML and CSS.
  • Replication of dynamic navigation as static links for visitors who have disabled javascript on their browser.
  • CSS & javascript code for random feature images on the home and second-tier pages.
  • Custom “404 - File not Found” page which also serves as a site map. Several sections and pages were removed from this site during the redesign, and I created the custom 404 page to accommodate visitors who had bookmarked pages which were removed or assigned new URLs.