Florida Atlantic University

College of Engineering & Computer Science

Visit the website at www.eng.fau.edu

The Client

Onyx collaborated with the FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science to design and develop a new website. The FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science provides programs, guidance, mentoring and opportunities to students for a challenging and rewarding academic experience. Their goal is to educate students to become the best engineers and computer scientists that are qualified to meet the business challenges of today and beyond.

The Challenge

The staff and faculty at FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science wanted to develop a site that was consistent in look and content but dynamic and user friendly.  The original website suffered from big problems such as lack of consistency, difficulty in updating content and disorganization.  The challenge was to design the website with a backend content management system that made uploading pictures, content and administrative rights easy to utilize.

The Design

The new FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science website was created with an attractive, easy to use layout that is functional to both end-users and administrators. The website provides a unified design throughout, while integrating the management of the engineering portal and three different department websites.

Although there are four sites in total, they are all managed through a single, integrated administrative panel. This panel has different functionality based on the role of the current user. For example, the administrator has complete control over every aspect of the site while the contributor can only write content that must be approved before appearing on the site. 

The Site

The website puts editing power back into the hands of those who need it.  Faculty and staff are allowed to edit the part of the site that pertains to their college. However, all changes undergo a review process by the main site administrator before they are approved and displayed. This ensures consistency, while still allowing the faculty or staff to post their own articles and make necessary updates.

The Results

Onyx streamlined the process of adding content to the site, which alleviates the worry of formatting everything perfectly or resizing every picture used. The website was created using PHP and also aims to meet all W3C standards in addition to following good practices for accessible web content.The new website has been extremely effective for students and administrators alike. The clean design and easy to use tools have allowed the FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science to have website that remains relevant and dynamic for faculty, staff and students.