National Center for Welding Education and Training (Weld-ed)

Weld-Ed National Center for Welding Education and Training is a national partnership of colleges, universities, professional societies, government and private industry, funded by the National Science Foundation and committed to increasing the number and quality of welding and materials joining technicians to meet industry demand. Originally built in 2006, Weld-Ed’s website had become stale, outdated and semi-functional. It was decided to implement a completely new website with a modern, responsive design and new content realigned with the institution’s mission and goals. I took on the role of project manager and lead UI/UX developer, managing a handful of specialists that were subcontracted through me, forming a micro-agency to tackle this large scale project.

The project started with a redesign of the Weld-Ed logo. I contracted with an outside graphic designer to deliver a complete suite of graphic assets that could fulfill a variety of use requirements.

The second phase of the project focused on content strategy and creation. With assistance from a writer/content developer we worked closely with a group of key Weld-Ed stakeholders, conducting interviews, curating content from the previous site, and extracting information from internal and external documents. To support the written content, and create excitement about the field of welding in general, we. conducted a photo shoot at the welding department at Weber State University.

The site is hosted on servers at Lorraine County Community College in Lorraine, Ohio. The IT department at the college had a number of policy and security requirements that had to be met. The backend of the site was developed for Wordpress. I created the the theme from the site design from scratch following LCCC’s technical requirements.

I really stretched out on this one, doing raw Wordpress backend development for the first time, working with an institution’s technical requirements and managing a group of subs to create the site. The project was a great challenge and the end result was super rewarding.