1. Case Study
Georgia Tech - College of Engineering - 2014 Redesign
Eric Sembrat - DrupalCamp Chattanooga - September 2014

2. Who Am I?
A quick introduction!

3. Eric Sembrat
• Web Manager for the College of
Engineering at Georgia Tech
• Ph.D. Student in Instructional
Technology at Georgia State
University
!
• Website: http://ericsembrat.com
• Twitter: @esembrat
• Hashtag: #DrupalGTnooga

4. Our Roadmap
• The Scenario
• The Plan
• The Delivery
• The Roll Out
• Lessons Learned
• Questions, Comments?

5. The Scenario
Where the College of Engineering was in 2013.

6. Our Study
• The College of Engineering at Georgia Tech had
been without a developer for two years and relied
on a consulting firm for various web changes.
!
• I was hired in January 2014 to steer the web
redesign and provide in-house Drupal development.

7. Campus
• The campus has just completed a web redesign
template project (Jan - Oct 2013)
• Led by Institute Communications
!
• Focus on:
• Responsive adaptive styling
• Native Drupal 7 theme
• Style standards for campus web presence

8. Old CoE

9. Old CoE

10. Existing Website
• A mishmash of structure and design:
• 3 content types for new stories
• Various unused/unclear content types
• Large micro sites deeply integrated
• No central authentication linked
• No analytics linked
• No adaptive theme or responsive design
• Rarely utilized backups and security updates
• All custom layouts were wrangled in the WYSIWYG fields

11. Adapt & Refine
• The college wished to leverage Drupal’s sub-theming
infrastructure and create a College of
Engineering branded template.
GT GT CoE GT CoE
Site(s)

12. The Plan
Where the College of Engineering was in 2013.

13. Plan
• The redesign is composed of three elements:
• 1) Structure & Content Reorganization
• 2) Theming & User Interface Design
• 3) Requested & Unexpected Changes

14. Plan
• The redesign is composed of three elements:
• 1) Structure & Content Reorganization
• 2) Theming & User Interface Design
• 3) Requested & Unexpected Changes
Communications Team

15. Plan
• The redesign is composed of three elements:
• 1) Structure & Content Reorganization
• 2) Theming & User Interface Design
• 3) Requested & Unexpected Changes
Communications Team
Consultant

16. Plan
• The redesign is composed of three elements:
• 1) Structure & Content Reorganization
• 2) Theming & User Interface Design
• 3) Requested & Unexpected Changes
Communications Team
Consultant
Web Developer

17. Structure & Content
• Reorganize content hierarchy to match new menu
location and limitations.
• Rewrite content to reduce redundancy, update old
information, and simplify pages.
• Provide feedback on administrative layouts,
functionality, and design.

18. Theming & UI Design
• Design Drupal 7 theme template.
• Develop initial structure of website and page
templates.
• Integrate development with Georgia Tech
standards (CAS authentication, new GT theme
template).

19. Requested/Unexpected Changes
• Refine development and design based on
feedback.
• Generalize theme template for sub-subthemes.
• Adjust development for unforeseen change
requests.
!
• Communicate with consultants to ensure
development is maintainable and scalable.

20. Web Developer
• Unique role that communicated between
Communicators and Consultancy.
• Determined which tasks were appropriate for consultant work.
• Translated technical specifications to understandable language.
• Refined consultant output to be more generally usable.

21. Timeline
Content creation, updates, and refinement
Consultancy development and rollout
Web Developer refinement and changes
Final Review
initial rollout

22. Delivery By Consultant
• Drupal theme (inheriting from the GT theme)
• Development Drupal installation with structure
and dummy content
• Custom features for structure rollout

23. The Roll Out
Where the College of Engineering was in 2013.

24. Post-Delivery
• Changes were required post-delivery to match the
current trends and practices with Drupal on
campus.
• WYSIWYG filters and capabilities
• Further mobile theming and adjustments
• Changes to views and panel elements
• Theme separation and segmentation
• Sass integration

25. Changes
• Changes were made to the content to match
feedback by the College of Engineering faculty,
staff, and administration.
• Construction of internal protected pages
• Migration of specialty pages (accreditation, etc)
• Migration of existing content from old website
• Adjustment of content types to match unexpected requirements

26. Lessons Learned
Where the College of Engineering was in 2013.

28. Lessons Learned
•We are still developing the website.
• Iterative development cycle
• Changes, bugs, additions
• Security updates & patches
!
• Using feedback, requests, and suggestions to
develop new pages, features, and functionality

29. Lessons Learned
• 1) Broken Links will happen
• Think about approaches to solving, mitigating issues.
• 2) Communicate development
• Faculty and staff may depend on the website for particular
content.
• 3) Develop, Test, and Roll Out
• Staging environments for new features are crucial to a smooth
rollout.
• 4) Soft Launch
• Test out the deployment and focus on squashing 0-Day Issues

30. Demo
Quick highlights and features!

31. Let’s Chat
Questions, Comments, Concerns, Discussions about Web Redesigns