Biola University Redesigned (Part 2)
Part 2 of 2
Part 1 was published last week.
- MM:
You describe your role as “web developer and information architect” including “ColdFusion, Javascript, HTML templates….” Can you discuss the project management process, and your IA(Information Architecture) choices? Did you use any personas or wireframes?
- DL:
Organizing the content can often be tricky, and there’s been a number of different structures over the last several years. We knew we needed to clean things up, and we wanted to group the content together more overall. In the collegiate world, there are a lot of phrases that maybe aren’t the best but are commonplace and expected, so we did a lot of research to see what kind of liberties we could get away with. We ended up with two wireframes, and conducted some focus groups and user testing to see what was most successful.
- MM:
Tell us about “Biola red.”
Biola University: Redesigned Undergrad Website
Dave Lowe is a web developer at Biola University, and was responsible for the redesign of their undergraduate website, which received some awards and sparked some discussion in the forum at Godbit. I recently had a chance to interview him, and obtain more information from his team about the redesign.
Note: Part 1 of 2. Part 2 will be published next week.
- Michael Montgomery:
You work for Biola’s IMC Design Studio as the web developer for the Web Group. How (and when) did you start in the field, and with Biola University?
- Dave Lowe:
I created my first web site (if I recall correctly, it was on Geocities) in my freshman year of college back in 1996. At first it was just some movie quotes, and then I utilized it for book lists and Amazon affiliate links. A few years later I started working with ColdFusion through a student job I had in the Information Technology department. During my senior year, a good friend who was working for Admissions as their web guy decided to move out of state and recommended me for the position.