Project Highlights

Challenge:
Central Piedmont Community College is preparing for a full website redesign and needs a strategic partner with expertise in accessibility, search engine optimization (SEO),  content management system (CMS) selection, and customer relationship management system (CRM) integration. Selecting the right vendor required a clear process, strong leadership, and cross-departmental alignment.

Approach:
As the project lead, I am managing the entire RFP process from start to finish with teammates from various departments. I developed a detailed evaluation framework that prioritized accessibility compliance, CMS experience, CRM integration capabilities, search engine optimization, training depth, timeline, and budget. I facilitated a cross-functional review committee, guiding members through structured scoring, vendor demos, and clarification sessions. I ensured that all feedback was synthesized and documented to drive a transparent and collaborative decision-making process.

Results:

• Successfully led a multi-phase evaluation of all responsive vendor proposals, narrowing to the field to several finalists
• Unified committee members from across IT, marketing, and communications around shared priorities
• Created clear documentation to support vendor selection and future leadership review
• Set the stage for a data-informed, accessible website redesign aligned with institutional goals

Challenge:
To meet the Department of Justice (DOJ) 2026 accessibility directive, Central Piedmont needs to remediate website-linked PDFs and build internal capacity for accessible document creation. I am leading the charge to raise awareness about accessibility among college employees, identify problem areas, and deploy solutions to resolve them.

Approach:

• Coordinated accessibility training for content owners across multiple departments, including partnering with an external vendor for live remediation workshops using Adobe Acrobat and CommonLook
• Selected real college documents as training samples
• Advocated for screen reader prep and readiness improvements
• Shared branded templates and documentation to support accessible design moving forward

Results:

• Workflow changes are now successfully embedded in content governance practices to ensure all PDFs uploaded to the website are accessible
• Increased institutional awareness and accountability around accessibility laws
• 20+ staff trained in accessible document creation and remediation
• PDF issues flagged by Siteimprove significantly reduced

Challenge:
The landing pages for Current Students and Faculty/Staff on Central Piedmont's website were cluttered and difficult to navigate. Overuse of alert boxes and confusing dropdowns hindered usability. I lead the effort to modernize these key pages to improve access to important resources.

Approach:

• Used Siteimprove and Google Analytics to assess engagement rate and link usage
• Collaborated with stakeholders including the College Senate and Help Desk
• Removed outdated gold alerts, prioritized frequently accessed resources under the new "Quick Links" heading,  and reorganized accordion content for clarity
• Ensured accessibility through semantic structure and alt text cleanup

Results:

• Engagement rate increased by 22% within the first month
• Stakeholder satisfaction improved with fewer support tickets related to navigation
• Pages now serve as intuitive, mobile-friendly access points for key systems and services

Challenge:
The Career Fields section on Central Piedmont's website lacked clarity, was misaligned with the college's application taxonomy, offered a poor user experience, and was not actively maintained. Prospective students struggled to explore programs in a meaningful, intuitive way.

Approach:

• Conducted user behavior analysis using Google Analytics and Siteimprove
• Reorganized content to align with the College for North Carolina application categories and internal website taxonomy
• Used a structured RACI matrix and project plan to manage cross-functional tasks
• Revised and refreshed 14 career field pages using existing CMS templates and college photography
• Engaged stakeholders early and often to address myths and build consensus
   

Results:

• Engagement rate improved from 21% to 95% post-launch
• Individual program pages saw traffic increases as high as 3,000%
• Project became a model for future web improvements due to thorough documentation and buy-in
• Presented findings at the 2024 North Carolina Regional HighEdWeb Conference (now Digital Collegium)