I'm a web technology specialist with experience in all avenues of web technologies including web design, front-end development, back-end development, web accessibility, digital marketing, and more. Coming from a web development background, I have integrated the skills needed to create full web experiences.
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Division of Enrollment and the Student Experience Visitor Management System
As assessment is a vital part of each of our departments, they asked for an internal system to track and manage visitors coming into their offices. Visitors could range from students, to other staff members, and even community members.
Research
As I was formulating the beginnings of this project, I sat down with several departments to discuss their needs and identify what information they needed from visitors. With most of importance centered around gathering student data, I decided the application would need to integrate with our LDAP database which hosts a variety of student information useful to our departments. For flexibility with LDAP and a need for customization, I moved forward with developing a PHP/MySQL web application.
Development
Visitor Screen
Speed was the utmost priority when it came to checking in and checking out visitors from departmental offices. The system was developed a minimal interface that could be used on any device placed in the office. The process only requires a couple clicks and a swipe of a student's SUID if they choose to provide it. Afterwards, the backend functions run tasks such as emailing/texting the office staff member who the visitor is there for, pulling information from the LDAP database based on the visitor information and much more. These process are completely invisible to the visitor and do not interrupt how the system functions.
Administrative Screen
Using Active Directory authentication, staff members of each department can log into an administrative back-end designated to customize their office's instance of the system. The ability to add and remove staff members; generate custom reports; check visitors in for specific events; and more are available to staff members. Each of these configurations is stored in MySQL databases that connnect to the application for easy changes without affecting others.
The Office of Health Promotions asked for a web system that would allow students to order sexual health supplies for free in an easy, painless process.
Development
As the design/branding was dictacted by the office, I quickly began working on the development of the application. Utilizing the student LDAP database, I developed the application using PHP and MySQL databases to store orders. The system allows for a student to login with their NetID username and password, which authenticates to the LDAP database and pulls in additional information the office requests. Then the student goes through the ordering process of the supplies they request and are taken to a follow-up answers page before their order is submitted. Once it is submitted, the order is stored in a MySQL database that the office can then use to generate packaging labels and more using Microsoft Access.
Division of Enrollment and the Student Experience Interim Website Design
In 2014, Syracuse Unversity began rethinking their branding and web standards in terms of how to portray the University in the modern world. With a focus on modernizing and meeting WCAG 2.0 AA accessbility standards, the University produced interim branding guidelines for all divisions and departments to follow while they were working on the comprehesive guidelines.
As the Web Specialist, in charge of all 26 departments in the Division of Student Affairs, my job was to take the branding guidelines and modify a pre-existing site design to fit our content management system, Cascade. My main goals were to upgrade the layout of our departmental sites visually, make our sites WCAG 2.0 AA compliant to meet our accessibility standard, and implement features that would make it easy for our users to update their own sites.
Development
Layout
(Left: 2008 Layout, Right: Interim Design Layout)
Student Affairs departmental sites had been using a layout from 2008 that was not updated at all during this timespan. Many students, staff, and faculty spoke of how cluttered and static our sites were. Within months of my start as the Web Specialist for the Division, I was able to use a pre-existing design from our regional sites and modified the layout to match our branding guidelines. The layout was modified to have a cleaner, minimalistic look, but with the ability to add more dynamic content. This layout was adapted into Cascade and distributed to our departments for usage.
Accessiblity
In 2014, a University-wide committee was created to address accessibility issues in our technology and web fronts. I was asked to participate in the sub-committee focused on web accessibility and helped in the acquistion/creation of tools to assist all departments and division in making their sites accessible.
The knowledge and training I received in the sub-committee helped me modify the layout and code to allow for our sites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA compliance. This is a continual effort that allows to train and inform my departments about accessibility standards and how to accomodate for all types of disabilities on the web.
Back-End
After meeting with several departments and receiving feedback on Cascade, many of them expressed frustration and discussed how difficult it was to work with when updating their sites. Many departments have website managers that are not familiar with programming or design, so they felt like Cascade required too much of them to perform basic tasks such as adding a new page. One specific feedback mentioned that Cascade was difficult to use when embedding social media widgets and profiles. Many of departments had social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc and wanted to embed them, but found it impossible to do so.
Listening to their feedback, I decided to implement new features to make Cascade easier to work with. For instance, to address the social media issue, I created several widgets (known as modules in Cascade) where they could simply put in their username or page link, and it would generate the profile/feed widget itself. It requires no embed codes or anything like that on their part. I also was able to create an easy to use lightbox gallery and a slideshow module, which was highly requested by our departments. These features allows the departments to connect their student audience easier and showcase important information more effectively.
During my internship at Ancient Wisdom Productions, the Cornell Engaged Learning + Research Center came to us looking to redesign their current site as part of Cornell's effort to modernize their web presence.
Research
Before starting this project, I was briefed about EL+R's initiative to modernize their designs and come into the 21st century. The team was presented with specific branding guidelines from Cornell and EL+R which gave me several ideas on how to rework their website. They also came to us with their own wireframes to adapt onto their website. From there, I was able to create new wireframes with an unique iteration of their website
Design
Keeping in mind their needs and the branding guidelines from Cornell, I created a new layout that focused on beautiful, big images and organized content areas. Additionally, I distributed color to different parts of layout to focus on specific areas of content. My number one priority was to make this design unique, but still user-friendly for all types of viewers. Once the design mockups were finished, the new layout was presented and they were happy with their redesigned look.
