LAITS Podcasts

We got another project this week to update a dozen or so LAITS podcasts. We each got assigned a podcast to update in WordPress by adding bios and pictures for the guest speakers (which we find online), plus transcriptions for all the episodes. We’re getting the transcriptions through UT Libraries’ automatic transcription service, which has been working pretty well. The transcriptions are going a little slower than I expected because you can only get 10 at a time, and I have 30+ episodes to get through. But other than that I haven’t had any issues!

Knowledge Base

The final step in updating the Knowledge Base is reorganizing the black menu bar at the top of the site. There are several broken links, and several links that are probably outdated, so I’m looking at ways to update and relabel the categories with Abriella and Maddy. Orientation is coming up soon, so it will be nice to have the KB updated for the new STAs, especially while we’re all working from home.

Other than that, I don’t have much else to share. I think I have a project coming up for an art history class, so more to share soon!

Summer Orientation Advisor List

Text layout for the summer UT orientation

Portrait Photography Guide Update

I edited the photos to make the page look more unified.

 

Monica has formatted the layout, now everything looks clean!

Trapezites Progress

I recently had a code review with Stacy to go over 1) the code Rodrigo and I wrote and 2) how we should approach refactoring the HTML before implementing Lesser’s design. We realized a couple of things about how the site is working:

First, the site currently works as a “coin converter” instead of a currency converter (i.e. It converts from quarters to pence instead of US currency to UK currency). Stacy emailed the client about this, and it seems like we’ll be needing to change up the algorithm to make it a currency converter instead.

Second, some of the elements in Lesser’s design (like the addition of 2 time period fields instead of a single one) don’t reflect the current functionality of the site. So we’ll need to clarify some things with the client about this as well.

Stacy told me to hold off on making any big changes to functionality before we get to meet with the clients again. I’m just going to be updating the HTML for now.

Currently, the site looks like this:

And this is Lesser’s most recent design:

Editing the Self-Portrait Photo ID Images

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/web-admin-help/graphics/self-portrait-guide.php

I have added my own photos to the site since we are trying not to use images of people here at UT without their permission or copyrighted images. I already had these two photos of a good example of what to and not to add as a photo submission for photo ID editing.

 

 

UPDATING THE KB

All the Design STAs have been helping to update our older basic trainings to have more screenshots, instructions and tips related to new features on adobe software, headers, last steps, and overall have them more useful in helping to train new hires in basic skills that can be applied to the type of projects we work on here. Maddy, Bridget, and I worked on a lot of the overall organization and design of the knowledge base and made some updates. First thing was to take stock of what was on the KB and note what needed to be archived and what should stay. Maddy created a spreadsheet for this.

Then we made some changes to the categories sections to be smaller and have less specific sections. They are now more generalized for the type of work we do and on certain platforms. The archived content will disappear soon though as we have decided not to add that section to be visible on the front end of things.

The front page of the table of contents looks like this now! I made the banner and Bridget made the headers and tags for the sections. The black bar is one of the last things we are going to go in to and make further edits with since there is redundancy in there.

As for stylistic changes to the basic trainings, we now have headers and a cute image for final steps before closing off a training assignment. Sheryl made the following banner and I made the final steps image. This will now be standard for any new trainings that are made for the KB.