Housatonic Horizons
The client for this website (Steve) is the professor of a journalism class at a college. He already had a WordPress website for his students' articles, but he needed the website design updated to be easier to use on smartphones (ex: iPhone) and tablets. (ex: iPad)
I created a website for him that's easy to use on smartphones and tablets, in addition to laptops and desktops. Based on his other requests, I made the photo previews for articles larger, increased the font sizes, and included the "Disqus" service to allow readers to comment on articles.
Easier to Use
The main goal of the website design was to be easier to use on smartphones (ex: iPhone) and tablets (ex: iPad) compared to the previous website design. To accomplish that goal, I used a programming technique called "responsive design" to make the website layout change to the fit screen, based on what device the reader is using.
Easier to Read
Another goal of this website design was to make it easier to read on every device. So I made the font sizes larger, (depending on how big the device's screen is) and increased the size of the photos.
Website Design
The style of this website design was chosen after asking the client to show me some examples of his favorite website designs for news websites. Then I created a website design that combined design elements from his websites examples.
Multiple Authors
I added the WordPress feature of multiple authors, so he could publish articles that were a collaboration with multiple students.
Comments from Readers
I included the "Disqus" service so readers could leave a comment on articles. This service matches the colors of the website so it blends in well with the website design.
Social Media Sharing
I created clickable icons under each article, to make it easy for readers to share the article on social media websites. (ex: Facebook, Twitter, etc)
Date Archive
I added an archive of all articles on the website, sorted by the month and year they were published. This date archive allows the readers and writers of articles to easily find past articles. To make it easy to maintain, the date archive is automatically generated.