This semester in my Spring '09 Web Design and Programming I course, we were split into groups and had to design web sites for an organization of business of our choice. Since many of my group members were current or former ResNet employees, we chose The Tech Spot (Kent State's new computer service center) as the web site we would design. You can see more information, screenshots and the live site in my web site gallery. Please note that this is a beta site and its content may not be accurate.
I acted as sort of the group leader/information architect in this project, which was a great experience. Our talented programmers did the CGI/Form work and the VCD member of our group designed most of the templates. It was great to look at a new site from an IA perspective and work with a talented group of programmers and designers to create a good user experience. I am especially proud of the CSS-driven drop down menus, inspired by the Sons of Suckerfish CSS menu.
I'm proud to say the site uses fully compliant XHTML and CSS. The original design was done in Photoshop. Our group collaborated on content by using Dreamweaver CS4 and a WebDAV server so that we could check in and check out files without stepping on each other's toes. The site also contains functions from the JQuery library and the CGI programs are written in Perl.
As with any University site, we have to get marketing and departmental approval before the site can go live. Unfortunately, less of our design may be used because it is going into the University's content management system. Whether or not this site gets used, I think it's a great demonstration of my team's abilities and accomplishments.
