Kent State University
(Web development in Drupal, UI/UX Design, Usability, User Training)
40,000+ nodes, hundreds of thousands of visitors, hundreds of editors, and a tiny development team.
I work as an interactive designer and developer at Kent State.
I’ve developed a lot of projects in my time at Kent. Here are some of the more remarkable things I’ve worked on:
Subtheme for Kent State Magazine Relaunch
In Fall 2024, the Kent State Magazine was relaunched in a fully-digital format. My part of the relaunch was to develop and build the sub-theme and header/navigation for the site.
Like the rest of www.kent.edu, this is built in Drupal 10, as a subtheme of the main Kent State theme. Though its minimalist design is distinct from the heavily-linked utility navigation found throughout the rest of the site, I built it to function identically to the other Organic Group-based KSU menus so our editors would be able to seamlessly use the new theme.
I customized the Drupal block layouts for new content types developed for the relaunch.
Study Abroad Program Content Type & Filtering
I built a new content type (right) and a view filter (center) for students to access Kent’s hundreds of Study Away programs. I used a view, new taxonomies, several Twig templates, and CSS/JS. The content type uses the Paragraphs module and taxonomy terms to allow non-technical users to easily create instances.
Drupal 7 to 9 to 10:
the “Great Migrations”
Kent State was on Drupal 7 until late 2022. We partnered with a 3rd-party development company and rebuilt www.kent.edu from scratch in Drupal 9, and then in Drupal 10 the following year.
I served as the product owner and a support developer for both of these migrations. I was tier-1 support for the D7-D9 migration and then, having increased my skills and familiarity with the system, played a tier-2 support role for the D9-D10 transition.
I spent hundreds of hours on these migrations’ development and post-launch support periods as a user advocate and product owner. I tracked issues and missing functionality reported by Kent State’s user base of faculty, staff, and students, and triaged issues to the development team. I managed expectations with clients across the university and worked to help the development team understand the issues as explained by our users.
I also created the university’s online Drupal Training Manual, as well as a 2-hour training session for hands-on training for campus editors in Drupal, and provided that training over dozens of sessions to hundreds of users.
The Homepage: kent.edu
Kent State’s primary news outlet, Kent State Today, is growing in popularity, and it was requested to present it prominently on the homepage. We took the opportunity to trim down some outdated elements and simplify the homepage overall.
I developed the two-column grid Paragraph element that shows the Kent State Today stories, implemented the easy-to-update photograph element, and coached a team member through building the simplified Philanthropy and university Facts element.
Homepage 2024 Update
Homepage, Previous Version
Digital Exhibits
Kent State’s breadth and scale of work required a centralized location for visitors to find all the digital exhibits the university provided. The goal was that they be easily searchable and filterable, and that the page be simple to update by a non-technical departmental person.
I developed the filter by creating a Twig template with appropriate SCSS styling and implementing shuffle.js with Drupal views.
Kent State’s Digital Exhibits hub - see the live page here.
School of Fashion Theme
Kent State’s School of Fashion wanted a custom theme to present their brand digitally. I designed and developed this custom sub-theme for the School of Fashion. Multiple elements needed sub-theme templates and custom styling to set the school apart.
Updated School of Fashion Homepage
Previous Version
Kent State Admissions Theme
Enrollment is the lifeblood of a university. Kent State wanted to upgrade its Admissions site to a whole new theme. I worked as one of a team of developers putting together the paragraph elements, layouts, templates, and styling to bring the new theme to life.
I also created a new content type and template to display the different varieties of Admissions counselors to students and allowed the counselors to log in and customize their profile information.
Updated Admissions Theme
Previous Theme
Forever Brighter: The 350 Million Dollar Capital Campaign
Enrollment may be the lifeblood of a university, but alumni and donors make up a significant portion of a university’s funding as well.
I took over as lead developer partway through this project and finished out the specs. I built layout blocks with PHP templates, variations and different colorways for existing elements, and worked with the Department of Philanthropy, Alumni and Engagement’s team to make sure Kent had a donor-facing website worthy of its legacy and its future, showcasing the successes of its students and alumni, and that it worked well on multiple devices and screen sizes.
I also designed and developed a Forever Brighter-themed global “Give Now” button with an appealing dropdown state that lived in the header on every page on the university’s website:
The global navigation got a Forever-Brighter-themed “Give Now” button treatment.
The Forever Brighter Homepage
An interior page on the Forever Brighter site