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Baptist Milestone.com

I haven’t been in the habit of updating this blog… ever. But I wanted to mark the launch of the new Baptist East Milestone Wellness Center site.

I recently helped Jay Lane Media finish up this project, which had seen several iterations and developers. Due to a heap of varying circumstances, the previous developers were unable to complete the site to the needs of the client. So I stepped in to help wrap everything up and finally launch this site which had been in progress for over a year.

While a considerable amount of code was in place, including versions of the now-live class scheduler, there was still a lot of work to be done. Among which was:

• Speed optimizations
• Transition of many elements such as the homepage from static images to readable, accessible, editable text
• Outline of a upgrade path as well as definition of which CMS utilites would be left accessible to the end client and which would only be accessible to the admin
• Security upgrades
• Rebuild several forms to match updated functionality requirements
• Cross-browser testing
• Provide a client-updatable system for controlling their personal trainer listings and other staff
• Rewrite parts of the class scheduler to allow interface options such as a weekly listing of classes

Some features of the site:

• Event Scheduler – filterable via AJAX, added Weekly tab, updated design to match client’s needs
• Membership Form – input data, receive customized printable trial membership card
• Section-specific collapsed navigation – you don’t need to see all 500 subpages of other child or grandchild pages in the same category. Doesn’t sound like much, but WordPress can make this a little bit of a pain at times.
• Customized backend – thanks to manipulation of theme’s functions.php file
• Security and speed optimizations via minification and .htaccess manipulation

Tech used: Photoshop CS5, Espresso, CSS3, HTML5, Javascript/JQuery/AJAX, MySQL, WordPress, PHP

TL;DR: Redid a bunch of existing work and added increased functionality, working both from designer’s PDFs and my own design elements, for both content pages and dynamic forms and content areas.

Wordpress Custom Dashboard Panel

I made up a little custom dashboard widget for our clients at Louisville Web Group. At current, we’re placing this on the majority of our client’s WordPress installations. It gives the client a quick, easy way to see our contact information as well as a central spot to download their support documentation/”how-to guide”. I’m going to look into expanding this a bit in the future, possibly with a bit of JSON so that instead of having to update each dashboard with new info individually, I could update all dashboards simultaneously. This would be great for alerting clients to upcoming server maintenance or holiday hours.

The new Kentucky Wines site has launched! I can’t take design credit for this one, but I can take coding credit for it, with Ryan Matteson doing the Flash and taking care of changes from the client. This is a WordPress based site.

Kentucky Wines site

In mid 2008, Waverly Hills contacted Louisville Web Group in regards to setting up a streaming video site. The idea was to take the security cameras around the property, and offer them online for a small fee. The hope was that ghost hunters around the world would pay to log on and make the project lucrative. At the same time, the owners were working to secure extra funding to turn the dilapidated property into a 5-star hotel with a 5-star restaurant, while preserving the 4th floor (reputedly the most haunted)  for ghost-hunting tours and activities. As the project grew and shifted in scope, we realized that we would need a massive amount of bandwidth to stream these cameras live. We put together quite a bit of research on bandwith fees, abilities, and why this was even needed in the first place. While this was going on, talks also began in regards to redesigning the main Waverly site to mesh with the new video components. Which in turn lead to talk about getting their giftshop online. We signed off, and with Halloween fast approaching, I popped out the designs seen below.

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