Philsquare news, updates, & announcements.

Final version of KU department site launched

Tuesday, June 14th 2011 @ 12:00 am

Our Work

Philsquare is excited to announce the completion of The University of Kansas Mechanical Engineering department website resdesign. This project, which went through two updates over several months, was Philsquare’s first client. It represents not only the large-scale project the team at Philsquare can design and code, but also our ability to work with strict design requirements and still create a clean and beautiful website.

About ME + design basics

The Mechanical Engineering (ME) department at KU wanted a unique look for their website that would allow them to stand out from competitors’ sites and showcase the department’s resources and faculty.

Chair and Professor Ronald L. Dougherty’s goal for the site was to have a major impact on drawing students to KU-ME.

“With a now much more interesting ‘look and feel’, the challenge is to update the content and maintain its accuracy and relevancy for those who could be interested in attending KU-ME.”

There were several things that presented challenges unique to the ME site redesign. Primarily, as the department is a part of KU’s School of Engineering, it had to fit within the brand guidelines established by KU. This included a header and footer that Phil Martinez, Philsquare founder and lead developer, decided early on in the planning process to incorporate as part of the website design overall and not exclude it from the design planning.

Meeting accessibility requirements required by law

As a part of the University of Kansas, a state institution, the ME website needed to be designed to meet the requirements of the “State of Kansas Web Accessibility Requirements”. This policy states that:

6.1 All Entity websites, web services, and web applications shall be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities in accordance with federal and state law.

This includes meeting W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Level A and AA Success Criteria and Section 508 Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards.
The largest component in meeting this policy — in addition to standards compliant frameworks that Philsquare normally provides — was to “Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.” (W3.org)

Browser requirements based on analytics review

Based on analytics information provided by the ME department, the new site design had to be functional in Internet Explorer 6.

“This design required elegant and judicious use of certain technologies that would not only appeal to a more modern web visitors but would also have graceful degradation due to visitors using older browsers” said Phil regarding the coding for various browsers.

Additional design elements

In addition to understanding our client’s basic web requirements, Philsquare made changes for improvement in copy and visualization. This included page summary paragraphs with the addition of additional photography placed throughout website to give the site an overall more aesthetically pleasing look. Overall, Philsquare suggested changes to copy, photography and navigation in order to provide a website that highlights the department’s opportunities and resources.

“The site will be a major recruiting tool for bringing in new students, faculty and staff – - who want to play key roles in this vibrant ever-advancing organization. It will be a resource for potential students and current students who want to review the curriculum, the job and educational opportunities available, potential financial support, and performance expectations” said Professor Dougherty about the site’s opportunities for the department.

Final thoughts

After months of working closely with the chair and faculty members, we are very proud to release the final version of the Mechanical Engineering department website. As many of us on the Philsquare team are KU alumni and our founder, Phil, is a graduate of the ME department, we were very excited to have been a part of this project.

Professor Dougherty about the redesigned KU-ME site:

“More excitement and vibrance; more color and uniqueness – - to set the site apart
from those of other departments/institutions; a wider range of methods for engaging
site visitors, keeping their interest, and bringing them back repeatedly.”

Tags: Custom Websites, KU, Accessibility, Testimonials

Comments