The Center for Victims of Torture  |  New Tactics in Human Rights Project

What did they need?

The New Tactics project had received grant funds to expand a static document resource website into an interactive community in which human rights activists could connect, collaborate, and create new content sharing stories about their work.

What did I do?

I built and tested features for the new online community using the Drupal content management system. I extracted existing content from a legacy content management system, cleaned up links and markup, and migrated the content into the new Drupal framework. I worked with additional team members to maintain project scope and plan for future development. I participated in organized usability testing and user training workshops.

Who did I work with?

As a member of a 5-8 person project team, I served as the primary web developer, collaborating with the project manager, technical director, usability specialists, and others on the project requirements, scope, timeline, and evaluation. I supervised volunteers and student interns and served as point of contact for contracted designers, website hosts, and custom programmers. I worked directly with intended users on training and testing the implemented features.

What did I learn?

As my first major project using the Drupal CMS, I learned the power of a modular framework and gained an increased appreciation for standards-based HTML coding. I also had eye-opening experiences with users which sparked a budding interest in usability testing and user-friendly design.