Article
New work from ZEMU
Since April 2004, I’ve worked with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum to plan, design, and develop a replacement for their aging web site. As I’ve been saying in my portfolio for months now, the old site “didn’t reflect their status as a world-famous pioneer of ecological restoration and active member of the Madison community.” Last spring, we set out to change this and do much more.
Now, many long meetings, extended conversations, hard decisions, and hours of labor later, we’ve created a site that achieves our goals and should serve the Arboretum well into the future. So without further ado: The University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.
Roll credits
This announcement would be incomplete without mention of three people who made this project great:
- Pat Brown was my contact at the Arboretum and hugely responsible for pushing this project along. She wrote or prepared most of the content, made key strategic decisions about the site, and was a better “client” than anyone could ask for. (She’s also partially responsible for ongoing maintenance of the site, so it was wonderful to have her involved all along.)
- Taylor Hughes is the PHP/MySQL/Javascript/everything guru who built the content management system, connected it to the public site, and wired the PayPal wizardry for the Events section. I’ve worked with Taylor on a couple of projects now, and he never disappoints.
- Noel Jackson did the initial XHTML/CSS development, including preparation of an amazing template (with touches of extra-special PHP goodness) that made the rest of the development process a piece of cake. This was my first time working with Noel, and he completely rules.
The future
Now that I’m employed full-time, ZEMU will drift off to hibernate. I’ll continue to work on a few small projects here and there, but FeedBurner keeps me very busy and I’m happy that way. This is probably ZEMU’s last major project for (quite) a while, and I’m more than pleased with the result. Few regrets here!
As for the Arboretum, I know there are a few areas slated for improvement. The Friends of the Arboretum need a new site. Earth Partnership for Schools needs to be modernized. The Woodland Plant Database needs to be ported to MySQL.
Still, I’d expect a prosperous web future for the Arboretum. With Pat Brown’s direction, this site should serve as a suitable guide and template for many years to come.