Creative Web Development

EBSCO’s old careers site was lacking in a few different ways. It had a poor user experience, bad navigation and a apparent lack of SEO. We set out to change all that. We streamlined the site-map and site architecture to make it easier for a prospective candidate to find the information they needed to apply for jobs. We also skewed very heavy on the SEO for this site which means there is a lot of text on the pages to reinforce keywords that people search for jobs on. Other features that I added included a more flexible news section. This section now functions a lot like a blog and allows for the addition and sorting of each category like – videos, events, career fairs and other relevant job-seeking tips.

NoveList, a product of EBSCO, launched their new site this week. The new site brings a bold new look along with expanded functionality. Built in Expression Engine the site uses jquery and plug ins to create a fun consumer experience. I also built a “blog-like” section for novelist to post relevant product content, including podcasts. Going hand in hand with their new site we also launched their facebook page. Now users can discuss and connect with their favorite NoveList folks via the site, facebook and twitter!

Last week we launched the Digital Archives website here at EBSCO Marketing. I had been working on this site for a while and am pretty excited about the result. This was my first site I built using the new HTML 5 mark up. HTML 5 is pretty amazing and while the browser support for all the functionality is not quite yet there, it makes sense to start to use the new tagging and java-script to get used to programming this way. The result for this site was awesome – the css was way simplier and I found that the cross browser coompatiablity was pretty high (a few IE 7 tweaks of course but whatcha going to do?).

The Archives site was also built entirely in Expression Engine. Some key features include the home page Carousel (which we should credit the Image Flow plug-in here), Contextual right side navigation (changes depending the page you are on), drop-down navigation, and Lightbox for the product samples. Using expression engine allows us to easily separate the content out from the design allowing our copywriters to tweak the copy on their own. The templating system in ee is great as you can code right within the CMS and have the template make decisions based on the content and what page you are on. Overall this site is a winner.

This was my first new site build in Expression Engine. While, now looking back I might have built it a little differently – overall all parties are happy with the site and it is easily update-able. The site was created to promote all the corporate database products that we offer.

To give the site some pizazz I built the homepage slide-show as well as the learning center slide-shows using jquery’s cycle plug-in. Other features include jquery tabbed navigation in the learning centers section and lightbox to display sample snippets from the reports. The site provides some great insights to these products offered and provides consumers with actual free samples of the product, increasing awareness and getting the consumer involved with our offerings.

With a conference looming, the marketing team was challenged to build a full scale website promoting our OPAC product in about a week. The team here was up for the challenge and we set to work. Through careful planning and organization we were able to pull it out. I worked closely with design and with the copywriter to make the site architecture flow smoothly and to create a standardized template that could work for all the content.

In the end we made the deadline and the site was promoted throughout the conference. The site’s dynamic navigation was easy to implement using Expression Engine. To showcase the product we used screen grabs that are enlarged through a javascript lightbox functionality.

Its been a while since I have posted, but lots of new and exciting development has still been happening! I moved permanent positions and am now working as a developer for EBSCO Publishing and its been great. EBSCO’s marketing department moved their entire network of marketing sites onto Expression Engine. I was super excited to dive in and learn this new CMS. As some of my first tasks I converted two of their existing sites onto this new platform. Both Discovery (right) and the Point of Care (below) websites I rebuilt using the expression engine back-end but keeping the existing site design and content. It was awesome to get right in there and learn EE through building these sites.

I did get to flex a few development muscles however as I added some new JavaScript technologies to both of these sites. I updated the left navigation to include a jquery – accordion like functionality. I also added light-box for any screen-shots, and updated the form validation with jquery validate.

Look out as we will be launching a new microsite soon after the new year where I really got to play with EE’s functionality! Also, coming soon HTML 5!! I have been doing a lot of research on the new release and am psyched to start taking advantage of the new mark up.