Information Architecture

Open.Michigan is the University of Michigan's contribution to the Open Education Resources (OER) project—an initiative that promotes the free and open exchange of courseware, throughout the world. After several years of using the eduCommons platform, which is built on the Zope and Plone CMSs, Open.Michigan decided it was time for an upgrade. Their goal was to build a top-notch courseware delivery system and make it freely available to the OER community. Drupal was the natural choice for this endeavor because not only is it robust and scalable, it is also open-source. Over many months, we worked very closely with the Open.Michigan team to develop a complex courseware delivery system to meet their exact specifications. Features include one-click download of all course materials, easier collaboration among university departments, and a full revision-tracking system. Since the system launched in late September, the staff at Open.Michigan have seen huge improvements in productivity. Piet Kleymeer, Open Education Manager, states, "...an improved user interface and more reliable and consistent software behavior, has cut our publishing time by nearly 400%." The system developed by Open.Michigan is available for download through github.com.

RE/MAX Platinum Online was developed to serve a community of both real estate agents and home buyers and sellers. The vision was a website where independent sales professionals from multiple cities could come together to share information. We designed and developed a Drupal-based system that supported a variety of users types, from community members to real estate professionals. We also worked with an industry-specific search builder to incorporate up-to-the-minute featured listings for homes, and allow users to search the database. 

The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW)—a non-profit organization that helps businesses, communities, educators and individuals succeed by facilitating connections between them—had developed a conceptual version of what they describe as “a resource directory meets web 2.0," known as WeToo. Wanting to take the project to the next level, they contracted us to implement a number of feature enhancements, build a more user-friendly look and feel, and upgrade their Drupal installation to accomodate future refinements. The WeToo website provides geomapped business resources that are searchable by a number of criteria, as well as an interactive community where members can create and join groups and post and share information, documents and events. We've launched a beta version of the new WeToo website and are actively working with CSW to plan future development.

Traverse City Chamber of Commerce is one of the most successful in the state, providing services for a five-county area. Over the past few years as the chamber has grown, the inflexible design of its website could not keep up, creating a unnavigable tangle of content and a lack of valuable features for its members. Additionally, the various departments within the chamber had a difficult time maintaining the information they were responsible for due to a multi-layered process. Ready for a complete overhaul of design, structure, and functionality, the chamber turned to us. After a complete redesign and rounds of user testing, we implemented an easy-to-use CMS that the staff can access and maintain and integrated it with a full-featured membership management system that streamlines their daily workflow. Learn more about Caravan, our membership management system.