PAVTEC Education Consortium
August 2001 to March 2004
In
August of 2001, I was contacted by the PAVTEC Education Consortium: a group
that works to get college credit for professional/technical classes for
high school students.
Visited frequently by teachers, administrators, parents, and students who were often novices on the web, the site needed to be very easy to use and information had to be easily accessible from many different places within the structure. To accomplish this, navigation was placed in several places on every page and the site architecture for a specific area was displayed in navigation on the bottom of every page.
The color scheme was taken from the existing graphic identity and enhanced with colors that appeal specifically to teenagers. Adults are satisfied with its clean look and teens remark it's not at all stuffy.
A large number of site visitors are using older browsers that don't support CSS, so tables were used to accommodate these users.
Two types of pages were designed: a home page, and a content page. The home page has a section for news and announcements and the menu is split into smaller sections, making it easy for the user to choose the correct option and not feel overwhelmed. The content pages were kept as simple as possible with content areas and navigation.
The PAVTEC organization has their own, often strong, ideas and I continue to be able to accommodate their desires while delivering a site that is also technically and esthetically pleasing.
Contact: April Merwin