Chico State Website Overhauls

In 2020-2021 I worked on multiple website revamp projects for Chico State. The recurring theme with each client was the desire for their site to be easier to use.

A Content-Focused Approach

Before considering design, I thoroughly analyze the current content of a website. Two tools I use for content evaluation are visual sitemaps with Gloomaps and page review in Figma.

Visual Sitemaps with Gloomaps
Creating a free visual sitemap editable by clients using Gloomaps is a quick and easy way to review the navigation structure of the current site or draft a new navigation.

Content Review in Figma
Getting screens onto an open canvas in Figma makes it easy to see the relationships between pages and where content overlaps may exist. Trying to accomplish this task using browser tabs involves much more friction.

Simple Design Within the Campus Template

Since the campus sites we manage are all populated from a single template, visual elements remain consistent across sites. While this may limit creativity in certain ways, it also allows for the focus on information architecture and the content itself.