I have been given the task of bringing the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design’s IT web site up to spec. The site’s main function is to provide info on the mission of the IT staff as well as an info portal for the students, faculty and staff who all have various IT needs. Once a collection of static and jumbled pages, the site is on its way to becoming a dynamic site that will be driven behind the scenes with a CMS.

Upgrades came in the form of a template-styled layout, where all pages with adhere to a central style sheet for content layout and control. Code has been upgraded to modern XHTML and of course, CSS. There are plans for implementing RSS and other XML uses as I continue to upgrade the site.

One of the biggest challenges has been just bringing the sheer volume of content up to date. There are literealy hundres of old, static pages of which each has to be evaluated as revelant or not and if so, upgraded. I have also functioned as copy editor on this project, examining countless old pages and pdf’s and extrapolating the pertinent info from the bloat. By striping the content out of pdf’s and inserting them back into the site, this has allowed me to make it keyword searchable, increasing its value as an info portal.

Aside from textual duties, I also provided some graphic support, creating a bank of images to be used throughout the site. Most notably, a bank of rotating images has been implemented on the home page, randomly changing each time the home page is accessed. Flash has been avoided to ensure the highest possible accessibility. While not about style, I felt it was important to try and add a splash of color and graphics to the site to lessen the feeling of info/text overload.

Often the case when coming into a preexisting environment, I had to work within specific guidelines for upgrading the site. Navigation had to match the previous style in both look and color [the left-hand nav bar]. Also, the University-wide navigation at the top also had to stay. The left-hand nav was converted into a server-side include and a buggy javascript was removed and instead, a lean designated list was used. This has helped ensure that the site will be accessible not only to modern web browsers but also other hand held devices and mobile phones.

The new version of the site was launched January 17th, 2008. The upgrade is still going on, as I’m converting more old pages and incorporating them into the site. Stay tuned for further updates.