The Virginia Department of Social Services Intranet site, known internally as SPARK, serves over 13,000 employees in state and local branches of the agency. This site is one of the agency's most critical systems. It not only houses all of the internal forms and documentation, but also serves as a portal to many of the online systems used throughout the agency.

Upon my arrival to the agency, I learned that their current web developer resigned without notice leaving them with a huge deficit. This not only placed me in a position of urgency but also one without guidance as there was no documentation regarding the site's maintenance. I discovered that the site was using a homegrown CMS coded with a mix of HTML, CGI and Perl. My initial impression was that this needed to be updated to newer technologies. However, based on the efforts required to implement, I determined that this should be set as a long term plan. In the meantime, I determined how the site functioned and performed the backlog of requested updates. Within the next couple months, I moved towards my specialty of design and kicked off with a minor face lift to the site. This design change was a simple rewrite of the styling of the existing site utilizing it's current infrastructure with a few extras sprinkled on top.

Original Design

Revised Version

Although a blessing to the staff, this was just a stop gap measure as I moved the department to the future. A new backend developer was brought aboard and after reviewing multiple vendors, we selected Evoq(DNN) to replace the current SPARK. The new intranet would now be called "Inside VDSS" and bring all new features and functionality for the agency. In the current system, editors of the site can only upload files into predefined areas as unordered lists. In this new system, the editors would have full control over their site's content and structure. Creating new pages and editing them would be as easy as typing in a Word document. I will serve as the lead designer for the new site and also assist in the customization and development of the new CMS. I've included a few options for the new site's design in the right-side bar. We are currently still in the initial implementation phases but updates will be added as soon as they are available.