responsive Archives | Samantha Soper

HostGator Blog Theme on WordPress

September 7, 2018September 13, 2018
by Samantha Soper

After the successful implementation of the Bluehost blog theme, I was referred to their sister company for the HostGator blog theme redesign. While the Bluehost project was more development-focused, HostGator’s team wanted full UX design, theme development, and implementation.

HostGator Blog Theme

First of all, I single-handedly took this project through UX design and development to final implementation in under six months. Significant improvements to SEO, schema markup, and customizability were the HostGator team’s most important objectives. Therefore, those requests were kept in mind throughout the design and development process.

Current Live Site

UX Planning

As a result of my blog questionnaire, I learned that their content manager was inspired by FitBit and Hubspot’s blogs. Additionally, they wanted a more modern look using colorful flat graphics, matching their new brand direction. They also liked board-style content blocks and subtle hover effects.

Sketch Concepts

Home Page Wireframe Sketch Options

Single Post Wireframe Sketch Options

Archive Page Wireframe Sketch Options

Wireframe Mockups

Home Page Wireframe

HostGator Blog Single Post Final Wireframe

Single Post Wireframe

Archive Page Wireframe

Tools Used:

Lean WordPress Theme Foundation: _S (UnderscoreS)
WordPress Test Data: WP Theme Unit Test
Framework: Bootstrap
Class for Recent Posts Widget Adjustment: Extend Recent Posts
Class for Category Meta Additions: Catapult Taxonomy Meta Class

Bluehost Blog Theme on WordPress

March 2, 2018August 29, 2018
by Samantha Soper

A former colleague, Machielle Thomas, contacted me to build the Bluehost blog theme, since they were looking to redesign. They had worked with their in-house designer some mockups, but they didn’t have a developer on staff with time available to complete it. Their blog was built on WordPress and Machielle worked with me during the Golfsmith blog build. As a result, she knew my experience and skillset would be a good fit for the project.

Bluehost Blog Theme

Based on the provided homepage and single post mockups, I built out the blog in a short time frame with little other creative direction. Significant improvements to SEO and customizability were the Bluehost team’s most important objectives. Therefore, those requests were kept in mind throughout the development process.

Current Live Site

Tools Used:

Lean WordPress Theme Foundation: _S (UnderscoreS)

WordPress Test Data: WP Theme Unit Test

Framework: Bootstrap

Spring Golf Look Book 2017

May 5, 2017August 11, 2017
by Samantha Soper

Due to my speedy coding time, I was assigned to UI development for the 2017 Spring Golf Look Book by Golf Town’s (GT) marketing team. First of all, GT’s in-house studio designed the look book microsite’s UX and interface. After approval, the lead designer and I coordinated on the specifics of implementation and graphics delivery.

I utilized the Bootstrap framework and I implemented jQuery carousels and waypoints, while developing this project. In addition, I used CSS3 gradients and Google Fonts to match the designer’s mockup without relying on images. Furthermore, the microsite is fully responsive and translated for English and French.

2017 Spring Golf Look Book

Current Live Pages

Example Screenshots

Microsite Landing Page for 2017 Spring Golf Look Book in English

Men’s Look Book Scroll-through Animation in English

iPad Men’s Golf Look Book in French

Find Your Golf Style Men’s Look Book Page

Mobile Men’s Look Book Page in French

Microsite Landing Page for 2017 Spring Golf Look Book in French

Women’s Look Book Scroll-through Animation in English

iPad Women’s Golf Look Book in French

Find Your Golf Style Women’s Look Book Page

Mobile Women’s Look Book Page in French

Credits:

UX/UI Design: Tevin Castle

Pro Pages Plugin on WordPress

April 6, 2017September 16, 2017
by Samantha Soper

The Pro Pages plugin generates a WordPress (WP) custom post type for information about various PGA Pros. Each Pro Page contains equipment, apparel for major tournaments, and a Twitter feed.

This project was an effort to migrate my successful What’s in the Bag? (WITB) PHP application built for Golfsmith over to Golf Town. Due to inconsistencies between the two server environments, I rebuilt the application as a WordPress plugin on the Golf Town blog. Additionally, I worked closely with GT’s IT to initiate a hosting relationship with WPEngine.

Pro Pages Plugin WP

Current Live Pages Samples

UX Planning

Data Model

On the WP admin side, equipment and apparel items are added as repeatable field groups. When a Golf Town (GT) product URL is placed into a product URL field, a combination of AJAX and CURL pull the product title and image from the GT e-commerce site. This OOP plugin is i18n compatible, with French-Canadian l10n files.

2017 Masters Tournament Scripting Sections

These elements were live on the Golf Town blog during the 2017 Masters tournament. While these sections only remain active on the page for a couple of weeks after the tournament, I captured screenshots to preserve my work.

All Players Masters scripting archive on GT Blog in English

All Players Masters scripting archive on GT Blog in French

Jordan Spieth Masters scripting on GT Blog in English

Jordan Spieth Masters scripting on GT Blog in French

Rickie Fowler Masters scripting on GT Blog in English

Rickie Fowler Masters scripting on GT Blog in French

Rory McIlroy Masters scripting on GT Blog in English

Rory McIlroy Masters scripting on GT Blog in French

Sergio Garcia Masters scripting on GT Blog in English

Sergio Garcia Masters scripting on GT Blog in French

Dustin Johnson Masters scripting on GT Blog in English

Dustin Johnson Masters scripting on GT Blog in French

Tools Used:

Object-Oriented Plugin Foundation: WordPress Plugin Boilerplate
Field Generator: CMB2
Twitter Feed: TweetPHP

What’s in the Bag? Pro Golfer Pages

July 2, 2016August 9, 2017
by Samantha Soper

What’s in the Bag? (WITB) pro pages were birthed from discussions between the e-commerce and content marketing teams. They wanted to bring major tournament outfits (scripting), Twitter feeds, and the equipment in the bags of selected pro golfers to the websites.

While they had featured simple tournament scripting landing pages in previous years, they needed my user experience and UI development expertise to pull off their idea. In total, the WITB pages represent the bags of 20 PGA and LPGA pros. Furthermore, the Twitter wall features live tweets from over 100 different pro golfers.

During major tournaments, the WITB pages are enhanced with a tournament scripting “What the Pros Wear” section, through coordination with select vendors. Additionally, this multi-layer PHP web application also deployed internationally on Golfsmith (US) and Golf Town (CA) in English and French.

What’s in the Bag? Pro Landing Pages

Current Live Pages

NOTE ON LIVE EXAMPLES: As of 11/4/16, Golfsmith is no longer conducting business and all associated websites are offline. However, you can check out the Golf Town Pro Pages plugin, which I used this PHP application to build.

2016 Tournament Scripting Sections

These elements were live on the Golfsmith and Golf Town sites during the 2016 Masters, US Open, and PGA Championship. While these sections only remain active on the page for a couple of weeks after the tournament, I captured screenshots to preserve my work.

Jordan Spieth Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Jordan Spieth Masters scripting on Golf Town in French

Rickie Fowler Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Rickie Fowler Masters scripting on Golf Town in French

Rory McIlroy Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Rory McIlroy Masters scripting on Golf Town in French

Bubba Watson Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Bubba Watson Masters scripting on Golf Town in French

Jason Day Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Dustin Johnson Masters scripting on Golfsmith

Jordan Spieth US Open scripting on Golfsmith

Jordan Spieth US Open scripting on Golf Town in French

Rickie Fowler US Open scripting on Golfsmith

Rickie Fowler US Open scripting on Golf Town in French

Rory McIlroy US Open scripting on Golfsmith

Bubba Watson US Open scripting on Golf Town in French

Jason Day US Open scripting on Golfsmith

Dustin Johnson US Open scripting on Golfsmith

Rickie Fowler PGA Championship scripting on Golfsmith

Rickie Fowler PGA Championship scripting on Golf Town in French

Jordan Spieth PGA Championship scripting on Golfsmith

Rory McIlroy PGA Tournament scripting on Golf Town in French

The Results

As a result, during major tournaments, the pages drove huge traffic spikes and increased revenue for both brands. Due to marketing efforts around this application, our email team participated in a Lunch & Learn with LiveClicker at the 2016 Experian Client Summit.

Golfsmith Fair-Way Promise Page

July 9, 2015February 1, 2018
by Samantha Soper

Guarantees and brand equities play a huge part in gaining customers’ trust. Hence, the Golfsmith Fair-Way promise was created. In an effort to communicate this, the Fair-Way promise needed to live on the website. Since there were 4 tenets, I used the jQuery-UI accordion to hide the details so the customer could focus on the tenets one-at-a-time. During the time of launch, Golfsmith’s branding relied heavily on golf course motifs, such as scorecards and turf. These themes are present in the landing page design.

View the Golfsmith Fair-Way

NOTE ON LIVE EXAMPLES: As of 11/4/16, Golfsmith is no longer conducting business and all associated websites are offline.

Hellas Hearts of Hope Charity Microsite

December 1, 2013October 9, 2016
by Samantha Soper

To launch the Hellas Hearts of Hope charity trip, members of the Hellas Construction team helped gather donations from family and friends. Most importantly, they needed an easy way to receive cash donations from vendors and other contacts. Due to this need, I built a one-page informational site explaining the mission of the trip. For this project, I built a simple, responsive microsite to collect PayPal donations.

Furthermore, I assisted in strategizing the donation campaign and logistically setting reach goals. These reach goals and donation levels helped sponsors visualize how they would be helping the village. Additionally, I wrote all copy for the microsite.

Through the money donated to the site, Hellas Construction was able to provide much needed school and medical supplies to the village of Jucuarán. Additionally, some piñatas and candy were purchased to make a fun day for the children. Most noteworthy, we were able to supply the village with clothing, toys, books, and other materials. These helped them getting through the upcoming holiday season and school year.

View the Hellas Hearts of Hope charity microsite

Visit the site

Roxie Polymers

August 6, 2013April 19, 2017
by Samantha Soper

View the Project

Visit the Roxie Polymers website

Nina Davis, MA, LMT Site on WordPress

January 10, 2013March 29, 2018
by Samantha Soper

Nina Davis, MA, LMT is a biodynamic craniosacral and lymph drainage therapist. Located in Austin since 1996, she treats adults and children. Her gentle, touch-based therapeutic modalities move energy and fluid around the body. Most noteworthy, she was voted Best infant Craniosacral Therapist for three years by the Austin Birthing Community.

About Nina Davis’s WordPress Site

Nina contacted me wanting to expand her business online and spread the word about her small business. Furthermore, she wanted a unique user experience that highlights naturally-occurring fractals. As a result, each page features on a large, natural fractal and matching background. Blue and green menu themes correspond to the fractal image, as well, while a frosted glass pane displays page content. I built page subsections with jQuery tabs.

Current Live Examples

NOTE ON LIVE EXAMPLES: I built this site in 2013 and was not hired to maintain it.
Visit Nina’s website

Screenshots

I collected these screenshots soon after I built the site.

Home page

About Nina page

About therapeutic modalities page

Referrals & resources page

Contact page

Project Tag: responsive

HostGator Blog Theme on WordPress

HostGator Blog Theme

Current Live Site

UX Planning

Sketch Concepts

Wireframe Mockups

Tools Used:

Bluehost Blog Theme on WordPress

Bluehost Blog Theme

Current Live Site

Tools Used:

Spring Golf Look Book 2017

2017 Spring Golf Look Book

Current Live Pages

Example Screenshots

Credits:

Golfsmith Fair-Way Promise Page

View the Golfsmith Fair-Way

Hellas Hearts of Hope Charity Microsite

View the Hellas Hearts of Hope charity microsite

Roxie Polymers

View the Project

Nina Davis, MA, LMT Site on WordPress

About Nina Davis’s WordPress Site

Current Live Examples

Screenshots

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