I volunteered with Pepperdine University’s Integrated Marketing Communications department to refresh and redesign Pepperdine's internal web hub (called “Community”) for faculty, staff, and students. The web refresh included a visual identity rebrand, compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and a focus on search engine optimization (SEO).
About the Client
Pepperdine University encompasses five schools in the university enterprise with several university entities. Since it’s last major refresh in 2014, the IMC team allowed me to assist in the major overhaul that included: new accessibility checks upon publish; wider templates, new grids and image sizes, changes to side widgets, and phasing out non-WCAG visual elements and styles.
Web Accessibility
Before I began assisting with the refresh, I needed to complete an assessment on web accessibility. The assessment included questions on web colors, captions for media, and other ADA considerations.
Web Content Cleanup - Accessibility & SEO
Site Clone & Content Freeze
The first task I tackled in the website refresh project was to perform a web audit of all of my departments webpages. Through the audit, I had to determine whether to “keep” or “remove”: webpages, attached documents/PDFs, media files, widgets, and images. Through this audit, I made decisions on behalf of my team to consolidate information, removed outdated content, and retire orphan files that did not serve a purpose for our targeted audiences.
Altogether, I audited 34 webpages, 26 linked documents, 14 widgets, and 85 photos and images.
Web Content Cleanup - Accessibility & SEO
Using siteimprove.com as a tracking mechanism, I worked on a myriad of issues within my assigned site which included: missing headings, heading missing text, link text issues, SEO meta titles, improper nesting, broken links, asset transfers, and layout fixes.
To the left is an example of a page with a duplicate meta title (several pages having “Fraternity & Sorority Life” as its main title).
Through ongoing audits from siteimprove.com, I made more specific meta tiles to resolve that and similar issues. In total, I resolved at total of 12 meta title issues within the departmental pages.
Site Launch
The new Pepperdine Community intranet site launched on August 10, 2021 with all of the SEO and accessibility changes made over the summer. I specifically altered 34 webpages related to my department of Student Activities. Please browse the pages to view new nested headers, meta titles, and changes in widgets.
