Drupal e-Commerce

northStudio worked in conjunction with egg creative and the client to implement the web component of Nature’s Path Online Communication Plan. We worked closely to match the online goals with the offsite marketing tactics and use the website as a hub for community engagement. Since launch we provide ongoing Drupal support and have developed a microsite (www.naturespath.com/getonthepath) with a high level of social media integration.

Solutions

egg creative had a tight website launch deadline to support a high profile media campaign
In one very busy month northStudio implemented the wireframes, sitemap and design
Integrated with a third party ecommerce system, developed a robust product/search section
Ensured usability was at the forefornt for site adminstrators

Project Features

Drupal Content Management
Product Catalogue with Extended Search
E-Commerce & Shopping Cart
Events / Media Calendar
Design by egg (www.eggusa.net)
User Interactivity
Flash Animation
Newsletter Mailing List
Theming

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Testimonial

It was definitely a great experience working with the northStudio team as well. From the start of the project, we under a seriously demanding timeline that seemed quite daunting. The expertise that North Studio provided was crucial to our abilities to successfully launch this site. Rene was extremely organized from start to finish, in managing the development process and ensuring that all technical requirements were met. As well Anne, you were very instrumental in our ability to manage the ever changing/increasing scope of this small project and communication was always very effective and prompt. Even the ‘confusion’ around the flash element was cleared up very quickly and professionally. In all, I feel the project was definitely executed well from the North Studio side and look forward to the next opportunity for our teams to collaborate. Until Phase 2, Rich Rich Morgan Producer, Tribal DDB Vancouver

Stevens Institute of Technology Stevens Institute of Technology Launches onto Drupal

SIT Launches 8 Bleeding-edge Drupal Sites

This summer, Drupal Connect finalized a nine-month engagement with Stevens Institute of Technology that represents evolutionary work on multiple fronts. The new websites modernize Stevens' web presence, improve mobile and tablet reach, standardize the technology stack, and enrich the user experience. Drupal Connect's efforts also significantly improve the speed and efficiency of web administration, while reducing duplication and costs.

Responsive Design and an Increased Reach

Given Stevens' significant international appeal and the prevalence of mobile phones and tables as primary browsing devices, Drupal Connect created an HTML5 Responsive Design interface that adapts to wide, standard, narrow, tablet (portrait and landscape), and iPhone/Android (portrait and landscape) screens. For example, the theme adjusts elements in the News Events slider and gracefully resizes videos and typography. The new theme means more alumni, donors, and prospective students can view the sites in meaningful and full-featured ways.

APIs and Content Sharing Improve Browsing Experience and Reduce Costs

Stevens' had a large amount of back-end data — courses, staff bios, publications, patents, etc — that had traditionally been manually entered and maintained on the websites. This led not only to duplication of efforts, but also out-of-date information, minor inaccuracies, and typos. Drupal Connect collaborated with Stevens' in-house IT team to set up secure APIs exposing the back-end data to the Drupal sites.

The central "Hub" site consumes the API data (JSON) and in turn, shares it with the rest of the sites. In addition to the back-end systems data, Drupal Connect also built-in the capability for the Hub to share its own content as Drupal nodes, JSON, or HTML endpoints. The other sites act as clients, flexibly displaying content as appropriate. For example, Stevens' needed consistency across the News Events sliders, so these are actually shared as HTML and consumed by a custom Panels plugin. Other data have looser restrictions and are shared as Drupal nodes, enabling client sites to use the nodes in Views, Panels, or Display Suite as needed. Drupal Connect also created a system of roles, permissions, and workflows to let Stevens manage certain content centrally, but still ensured School and Department autonomy.

The APIs and Content Sharing removed a significant maintenance burden and opened-up new possibilities for sharing news and events across the sites. The benefits are easiest to see in the cross-listed courses and faculty, but are interwoven throughout the sites.

Migrating onto Drupal

Drupal Connect migrated hundreds of legacy pages from multiple technology platforms using our Flatfish library. By using Flatfish, we were able to avoid messy 64-bit Oracle database support issues and start the migration work almost immediately.

By intelligently migrating all of the old content into the new Drupal sites, Stevens was able to review and curate the content over the course of several weeks — something that would have been an impossibility in their old systems.

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