Zeta Sigma Chi (ZSC) is a multicultural sorority dedicated to bringing together “women from diverse cultures for one common goal: success in education.”

When ZSC came to us, they already had in place a functional, if slightly dated, website. The site was built entirely in Adobe Flash, which presented some maintenance challenges for ZSC.

Besides moving away from the Flash platform, ZSC was also looking to add several new features to the site, including event registration forms, an improved front-page slideshow, a password-protected members-only file management system, and an online store, among other things.

Finally, with their largest event of the year just a few months away, they were concerned that the new site should be completed and published as quickly as possible, to make sure the the event registration features were ready for action.

After discussing various design and architecture options with ZSC's Client Project Lead, we agreed to build the new site in Joomla!, a popular open-source CMS solution and one of NS Web Solutions' core software offerings. This choice provided three distinct advantages:

1. provide ZSC staff with an easy way to edit page content;
2. help to ensure consistent design across all pages; and
3. provide a wide array of existing feature plugins for features that were being planned, and for features that might be needed in the future.

Because most of the new site was to be copied from the existing site, there was not a lot to discuss regarding the site's organizational layout, so we quickly moved on to the graphic design phase. Our designers presented ZSC with an initial mockup based on the existing site's design, with modifications to update the aesthetic and to accommodate the switch from Flash to HTML.

After several rounds of revisions and assurances from the Client Project Lead confirmed that the new design was “fabulous,” we began copying content from the old site and building new features in the new site. Within a few weeks, the new site was online, and online registrations for their national event were coming in.

Over the next few weeks, as soon as ZSC was able to finalize its intended use for the online store and document management system, those features were released as well.

Once the site work was completed, ZSC chose to rely on us for management of the site, through our full-service website management and professional website hosting options. With these in place, ZSC notifies us of the specific changes and updates they need to the site content, and our staff make those changes for them, relieving ZSC's already busy staff of most of the hassles of website maintenance.