Internet Web Sites

Educational Catalog Web Site

Client:

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz

Goals:

To design, direct and develop Extension's JSP web application to integrate into a vendor’s Oracle database ERP.
To improve the usability and experience of students with real-time updates to class descriptions, dates and costs and enrollment.

Achievements:

This website application has 1,900 pages and generates 30,000 visitors per month. It is responsible for 75% of all enrollments. The new site has increased visitors to Extension’s web site by 34% year to year.

The Web team collaborated closely with the outside vendor's engineers to implement dynamic JSP pages that integrated with their Oracle database ERP. This new site was a real-time, scalable, cross-platform and cross-browser compatible, JSP web application.

In addition, we worked with internal, cross-functional departments to implement Web site architecture and user interface principles while harmonizing design and functionality into a student-friendly site that supported our business objectives.

Educational Web Site

Client:

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz

Background:

The web team was asked to create a new site that would highlight the nationally known photography program offered by UNEX.

Goals:

To design and develop a slideshow "mini" site that would profile the 35 photography instructors, their work and what classes were currently being offered as well as past courses taught.

Achievements:

The web team designed, developed and continuously updated this site on a quarterly basis. It included a biography for each instructor and a slideshow of their work. It needed to integrate into the main UCEX website but have it’s own identity. To accomplish this, we needed to coordinate with the department director, his staff and all of the instructors to develop the site architecture, design and content.

Educational Web Site

Client:

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz

Background:

Science Illustration is one of the most prestigious programs of its kind in the nation. This highly select, year-long program prepared students who were sought after by renowned institutions and publications around the world. Graduates’ work can be found at museums and science centers such as the Smithsonian Institution, New York’s American Museum of Natural History, California Science Center and the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History and more.

Goals:

To modify an existing site and integrate into UCSC Extension’s main site for the Science Illustration department which was being incorporated by Extension.

Achievements:

The web team revised the existing site header and navigation along with UNEX’s main site navigation to reflect the restructuring of this department into Extension. To accomplish this, we needed to coordinate with the department director, her staff and all of the students whose work was profiled. This site was updated on a yearly basis.

Educational Web Site

Client:

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz

Background:

The University of California Extension's Corporate Training Department delivered On-Site Training for any levelto corporations within the Bay Area. Programs and courses were customized to meet project-specific needs and were offered at their place of business or at one of UCSC Extension’s campuses.

Goals:

To create a new site which would be integrated into UCSC Extension’s main site for the Corporate Training department. The site needed to appeal to professionals. It also needed to clearly explain the various training opportunities available to corporations and be a marketing tool for Corporate Training on their sales staff.

Achievements:

The web team designed and developed the site along with revising UNEX’s main site navigation to incorporate this new site. To accomplish this, we coordinate with the department director and her staff to plan the site architecture, content and design of the site. The design of this site coordinated with the marketing brochure being used to present a unified brand. The site became an integral part of Corporate Training’s marketing efforts and was updated on a continual basis to keep it relevant to their needs as well as their customers.

Educational Web Site

Client:

University of California Extension, Santa Cruz

Background:

The web team was asked to create a new “mini” site that would promote television documentary “The Roots of California Photography: The Monterey Legacy,” created by the Monterey Museum of Art in association with UCSC Extension’s Art and Design Department. It was broadcast nationally on Public Broadcast System networks.

Goals:

To design and develop a site that would publicize the television documentary as well as allow users to order a dvd online.

Achievements:

The web team designed and developed this site and incorporated into the main UCEX website. To accomplish this, we needed to coordinate with the Art and Design department director and his staff to develop the site architecture, design and content.

Travel Web Site

Client:

Ventures Extraordinaire

Goals:

Content: List travel itinerary for cruises and land travel
Graphics: Emphasize the exotic nature of the tours being offered.
User Interface: Make it easy for the customer to find which continent, cruise, ship, and date they wanted.

Achievements:

In the early days of the internet, this site promoted a travel agency's unique tours to Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. The cruises and land tours were entered into Quark so that the same information could be used for the printed catalog as well as the Web site. The navigation separated the land tours from the cruises and further separated those categories by continents. We worked with this client until eventually she was bought out by larger travel agency. The timng was good, because travel sites have become a thing of the past in most cases.

Faculty Web Site

Client:

M. Levy, San Jose State U. Class Site

Goals:

Provide a Web site for students to access information about each class taught by Mr. Levy
The Web site should appeal to the age group for which it was targeted.

Achievements:

This site is a prototype site for an instructor at San Jose State University to provide course notes, assignments, and quizzes for his accounting classes. We purposely make the the site irreverent to appeal to the age group he was teaching. Mr. Levy has a wonderful sense of humor and didn't object to our "portrait" of him which, of course, is not at all representational. (Mr. Levy is a distinguished executive within Silicon Valley.) Unfortunately, San Jose University had to reduce its teaching staff which effected Mr. Levy and the site was never put into production.

Faculty Web Site Content Pages

Each class has its own content pages for lecture notes, class assignments, quizzes, and miscellaneous information.

Multimedia Webcast of the 3 Tenors Concert

Client:

Rudas Organization

Goals:

Build a multimedia streaming video Web site to showcase the tour by the 3 Tenors
Advertise the new star competition.
Create a database for fans to pre-register for the Web cast.

Achievements:

Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carros toured the United States during 2000. YBP developed the original Rudas Superstar Theater site and provided audio and video clips of the program.

Non-profit Organization

Client:

Silicon Valley Webgrrls

Goals:

Set a standard of Web excellence
Maintain site easily by volunteer programmers

Achievements:

The Silicon Valley Webgrrls was part of an international organization of over 20,000 women whose profession is connected to the Internet, www, or multimedia. The challenge for this site was that it needed to "state of the art" for its day and yet still be easy to maintain and expand as this organization's needs grew. Ms. Lewis headed up the SVW Web site committee for 3 years. She used her design background to create the site graphics, and user interface. However, much of the credit for programming and maintaining the site goes to the group of about 30 volunteers who participated in the site. The group was divided into functional groups such as content, design, and programming.

The site had a great deal of functionality given its compact size. The black rectangle on the far left had scrolling news content about events coming up and links to past events or featured articles. If you clicked on a picture of a guest speaker (pictures on the right), the logo area (graphic of women holding hands to form a "W") became a slide show with highlights of the lecture. Rolling over the main navigation below the small pictures brought up the sub topics so a viewer could get directly to a section of interest.

Most of this site was created, tested, and put in production within a one month time frame to coincide with the 2nd anniversary of the local chapter in May, 1999. The key committee members stayed very active in maintaining and improving this site over the years. It was a truly inspiring group of women with which to work.

Silicon Valley Webgrrls

Because the home page had a "magazine" design style, the content pages had to bring in elements of the design and still leave white space for the content. The site was not very large, which gave us the opportunity to leave the entire navigation in the header.