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Designed by Yours Truly
The Loyola Phoenix Website
[Building Digital Experience for Campus Journalism]
The Loyola Phoenix is Loyola University Chicago's independent student newspaper, serving the campus community with news, sports, and culture coverage. As the web developer, I maintain and enhance the newspaper's digital presence, ensuring the website remains accessible, functional, and engaging for thousands of monthly readers.
My work spans technical maintenance, feature implementation, and data-driven optimization. I handle everything from troubleshooting WordPress and Elementor issues to building custom solutions for newsletter signups, content display, and analytics tracking. I work independently to identify problems, implement fixes, and continuously improve the user experience based on site performance data.
Currently, I'm expanding the Phoenix's digital reach by beginning development on a mobile application, bringing campus news directly to students' phones.
[The problem]
Student newspapers operate with limited resources and rotating staff, yet their websites need to serve multiple audiences—students, alumni, prospective families, and the broader university community, reliably and accessibly. The Phoenix website faced ongoing technical issues: broken layouts, inaccessible features, poorly integrated newsletter signups, and unoptimized content displays. Without a dedicated developer, these problems accumulated and degraded the user experience. Additionally, the team had no analytics data to understand how readers actually used the site, making it impossible to make informed decisions about features or content strategy. The site needed both immediate technical stability and long-term, data-driven improvements.
[My approach]
I took ownership of the Phoenix website as both a problem-solver and strategic improver, working independently to maintain stability while building new capabilities.
Proactive maintenance: I established regular monitoring to catch and fix technical issues before they impacted readers. This included troubleshooting WordPress/Elementor bugs, optimizing page performance, and ensuring accessibility standards were met across all content.
Feature development: When the team identified needs like better newsletter signups or improved flipbook displays, I researched solutions, tested implementations, and deployed features that enhanced both the editorial workflow and reader experience.
User-centered design: Every technical decision considered the end user. Whether fixing broken layouts or building new functionality, I prioritized accessibility, readability, and intuitive navigation to ensure the site served all members of the Loyola community.
[outcomes & reflections]
The Phoenix website now operates as a stable, accessible platform serving thousands of monthly readers. Technical issues are resolved proactively, and new features are implemented based on editorial needs and user data. I'm currently beginning development on a mobile application to extend the Phoenix's reach beyond the web browser, applying mobile development skills while maintaining the same focus on user experience and accessibility. Working on a live news site has taught me to balance immediate problem-solving with strategic improvements, work autonomously, and build solutions that serve both editorial workflow and reader experience.
[key contributions]
Customized Section pages
Designed and implemented dedicated landing pages for each news section (News, Opinion, Arts, Sports, etc.) to improve content discoverability and reader engagement. Each section page features a curated layout with featured posts, recent articles, and consistent branding that helps readers navigate the Phoenix's diverse coverage areas. The custom layouts prioritize the most important stories while maintaining visual hierarchy and readability across devices. This gave each section its own identity while keeping the overall site cohesive.
- Built custom WordPress/Elementor templates for each section with modular components
- Integrated featured post functionality allowing editors to highlight key stories
- Implemented responsive grid layouts adapting to mobile, tablet, and desktop viewports
- Maintained consistent navigation structure and branding elements across all section pages
Improved editorial workflow by giving the team direct control over featured content placement and section organization. Created a more engaging content organization system that helps readers discover relevant articles and navigate between coverage areas seamlessly.
bilingual content navigation
Implemented a dynamic "Leer en Español" (Read in Spanish) button that appears on articles available in both English and Spanish, allowing readers to navigate directly to the translated version. This feature supports the Phoenix's bilingual coverage and makes Spanish-language content easily accessible to the university's diverse readership. The button appears automatically when Spanish translations are available, providing a clear visual indicator and direct link to the translated article.
- Developed custom WordPress functionality to detect when Spanish translations exist for a given article
- Created conditional display logic to show the language navigation button only on bilingual posts
- Designed button styling and placement to be visible but unobtrusive within the article layout
- Configured proper URL routing to link between English and Spanish versions of each article
Enhanced accessibility for Spanish-speaking readers in the Loyola community and improved discoverability of the Phoenix's Spanish-language content. Streamlined the bilingual reading experience by providing direct navigation to translations without requiring manual searches.
multi-media content integration
Integrated diverse media content directly into the Phoenix homepage and article pages, including podcast episodes and interactive crossword puzzles. This transformed the site from a traditional text-based news platform into a multi-media hub that showcases the full range of the Phoenix's content offerings.
- Configured custom embed solutions for podcast players and interactive crossword widgets
- Implemented responsive containers ensuring media content displays properly across all device sizes
- Integrated third-party services and APIs while maintaining site performance and load times
- Designed placement and styling to highlight multimedia content without overwhelming the homepage layout
Increased content discoverability by showcasing the Phoenix's podcast and interactive features prominently on the homepage. Created a richer, more engaging user experience that encourages readers to explore beyond traditional articles and demonstrates the breadth of the Phoenix's journalism.
Live Site