Boys & Girls Clubs of America

WEBSITE REDESIGN

For more than a century, Boys & Girls Clubs have helped put young people on the path to great futures. In 2011 their main website not been updated in over 8 years and was still using outdated HTML rather than a CMS platform. With the launch of a new campaign taking the stage, I was brought in to give the main website a complete overhaul and integrate with SharePoint CMS.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Visual Design, Front-end Development, Sharepoint Development, User Experience

Smart, re-usable, and modular

Our approach to the new platform was to move away from page templates and instead accommodate modules designed for specific content and user needs. This approach resulted in a more robust framework that could be managed by a wider variety of internal users.

We reshaped content creation guidelines and designed the new site architecture. Each article received an additional set of fields in the back end for content writers to input core elements such as shortened headlines, summaries, keywords and snippets to be used across the site for a variety of assets and modules. SharePoint web parts (modules) were customized to pull that information based on the taxonomy and allow for content blocks across the site.

As a result, homepage, sidebar and other modules were automated to create message consistency and reduce content update effort.

Design Takeover With CSS

As an added feature, we created a stylesheet override that could completely re-skin the page for highlighted or specialized sections, like Youth of the Year, with a stylesheet under 75 lines. This approach gave substantial flexibility to the design without compromising the integrity of the layout or functionality. We were also able to create a completely fresh homepage to promote special initiatives with a very short turnaround.