NWsource Redesign

Link: NWsource

Responsibilities

wireframing, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, Drupal (CMS) development, web standards, accessibility

Update 05/05/08: NWsource featured on Top Notch Themes, "Showcase of newspaper sites on Drupal at NewsTools2008".

Following a major upgrade to NWsource articles using the Drupal content management system, we needed to include the remainder of the site into the fold. The team wanted community, neighborhoods, and interests to be the goal of the site, while still providing the same expert voice of the editorial staff. We wanted to provide feature enhancements, such as forums, comments, and reader reviews to motivate discussion amongst readers. We also wanted to foster a daily habit to the site content.

We were committed to a very tight schedule (less than 3 months) to wireframe, design, and build our entire site. With that much content, we really needed to spend some quality time scoping to keep a reality check on the features we intended to provide.

How Drupal saved the day

Under normal development circumstances, we would have said "no way, it can't be done". With many supported modules already created, we were able to quickly build out features that would have taken months to create individually. With a little theme wizardry on our part, the site was up and running in very little time at all.

Bringing it all home

Layering a site redesign on top of an upgrade has its challenges, and we faced them head on. Static pages, legacy systems, ColdFusion (ColdFusion!), and many new site features kept us all anxious during the project. After all of our hard work, we implemented a site that is up to web standards, hosts a number of community enhancement features, improves editorial work flow (e.g. editions, content referencing). It also holds up well to accessibility standards, document hierarchy, and progressive enhancement, not to mention bold new look!