MCPS – Website Redesign

Specs

Hardware: Desktop computers, Mouse, Droid Charge, Galaxy Note 3
Software: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Notepad, various web browsers
Features: Mobile-friendly/Responsive, Accessibility, JavaScript, jQuery Toggle, Slider
Project Duration: Part-time for a little over three months.
Release Date: January 7, 2014

Description

This project was a website redesign for the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Student eLearning Program. The program was in need of a new website design due to the previous website’s confusing structure, lack of scalability, and late-1990s table-based layout and related coding issues. I was charged with designing a modern website that had the same look, feel, and color scheme as the school system’s website.
 
The program supervisor wanted links to five content pages to appear prominently on the main page: 1) general information for students about online learning, 2) information for teachers about online teaching, 3) online courses taught by MCPS teachers, 4) online AP courses, and 5) information about the credit-recovery program (Online Pathway to Graduation).
 
Other criteria included incorporating a new program logo that I created for a print project earlier in the academic year (which would replace the cartoony ball character used in a variety of assets) and including a new section for a formerly separate program area (the credit-recovery program).
 
A consideration that I had was to make the content area of the new website feel more open and lighter than the program’s previous website and the school system’s website. Though not a requirement, I decided that the new website should be mobile-friendly.
 
After the launch of the new website, the office received many compliments on the new website. Accolades came from administrative offices within the school system, parents who found the new website easier to navigate and more user-friendly for finding relevant information quickly, and other offices within the school system who became interested in obtaining my design services. The infographics were popular, too.
 
Unfortunately, the new website lasted less than 10 months because the program office was mandated to transfer all content to the school system’s new content management system and new base design/template.

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