Overview
From 2010 to 2012, while I was still an undergraduate working toward a bachelor’s in Business Administration, I was a junior developer on the University of Rhode Island’s web team. It became the defining project of my early career: I was trusted to design and build the university’s new website — the homepage and top-level pages every prospective student, parent, and alum would land on — as URI moved its web presence to WordPress.
A university on WordPress
The move to WordPress was about more than a new look. URI’s colleges and departments each needed their own site, with room to make it their own. I built two responsive themes in a WordPress multisite network: one for the university’s homepage and top-level pages, and one that individual colleges could adopt and customize as their own.
Design and UX. Beyond the build, I contributed to the frontend design and UX decisions: a clear primary navigation by audience and task, quick links to the pages people looked for most, and a homepage that put student and faculty stories front and center.
Built for the colleges. The college theme kept the shared URI header and navigation so every site still read as part of the university, while giving each college its own banner, menus, sidebar, and homepage content. I optimized it for easy customization, so a college could make the site its own without breaking the system.
Why it mattered
Very few students get handed the front door of their own university. In 2012 URI featured me as one of its Big Thinkers, crediting the work “completely overhauling the University of Rhode Island’s homepage and other top-level pages.” Doing it while studying business shaped how I’ve worked since: design and development decisions made with the audience, the organization, and the people who will maintain the site in mind.
