Website Design

Fit Kid Champions, a partner of the University of Michigan’s Project Healthy Schools, is an outreach program that encourages kids to “get moving”—part of a national campaign   promoted by Michelle Obama. The organization approached us with an idea for a web-based log that would allow kids to track their activity on a daily basis, join virtual teams, and earn points and recognition in the process. We worked closely with the staff of Fit Kid Champions to develop additional social features for the log, including the ability to upload images, see each other’s profiles and progress, and post messages to teammates. During the project, the log was also expanded to include more aspects of a healthy lifestyle, allowing kids to also track eating well and caring for others. The final product is currently in beta release and being tested with local schools.

AccessVision, Battle Creek's community television station, knew it was important that their website not only have a modern design, but also demonstrate their expertise in the world of technology and communication. The previous website was largely static content that was difficult to maintain, so the site was migrated to the Drupal CMS platform to allow them to implement the desired features created in the Open Media project on Drupal.org. AccessVision now has the ability to manage their own use of facilities and resources, based on a member's membership type, membership status and certifications. They can showcase programming, keep the community schedules up-to-date and phase two will allow users to register for classes online.

The online archive of scholarly journals, JSTOR, was undergoing a complete overhaul of their user interface. In conjunction, the organization decided to rebuild the informative and marketing side of their public-facing website, spinning it off into a separate sub-site at about.jstor.org. Having chosen to use Drupal for this part of the project, JSTOR approached us with an aggressive timeline, looking for a completely new design that would sync with their rebranding efforts. We worked within in the guidelines provided by their parent organization, ITHAKA, to create a minimalistic website that still packs a lot of information. We built out a system for creating and managing landing pages for their specific markets, membership communities and content collections, as well as an integrated multi-level fee structure. 

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. 

Eastern Michigan University's math department was already using Drupal to manage their website, but their existing design was dated, and lacked a sense of enthusiasm for the subject. EMU came to us looking for a custom theme that would shed a positive light on the subject. Switchback's design team built out a new look and feel that incorporated visuals created from mathematic algorithms as well as helped restructure the website architecture. We also implemented a blog aggregator and custom slideshow for the project.

Another project for the non-profit, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW), START Toolkit is an online blueprint to help businesses to develop regional, sector-based partnerships. Member organizations have access to a resource-rich, collaborative text. Users are connected to each other through their subscribing organization and can securely and privately comment on, bookmark, and share information within their member group. Along with developing the functionality for the website, we worked with CSW to design an easy-to-use interface for navigating the abundant information provided through START Toolkit.