Part I - Inventory

University Publishing Corporation (UPC) is located in Bloomington, Indiana. Despite their small size, they are able to provide service to people located worldwide. Their main focus is to help organizations and higher educational insitutions find and locate past alumni in order to create an update directory or publish newsletters.

Currently, UPC uses their website as a way to encourage more alumni participation. Having a high volume of participation is key to making their directories and newsletters successful. One such way is by allowing alumni to update their current information via online forms located on the website. Not only does this save alumni time but it also saves UPC money in postage. Currently, there is no database to back up the online forms and all information is sent via email which is then manually entered into a database in batches. PHP is used to collect and email the information.

Behind the scene, the high speed Internet is supported by the local area network (LAN). To help free up scarce resources in the company, UPC outsources the webhosting and IT portion of their company. The web host is Seg-Ment?; they help with everything concerning the IT aspects such as the network, troubleshooting, and progamming. The server that hosts the site has software available such as PHP and MYSQL, although a database is not currently used.

Jeni Szymanski Coffey, the designer and webmaster of the site, does all the maintenance and updating herself. She accomplishes all those tasks by spending approximately two hours per week depending on the amount of work needed to be done. Recently, we were informed of her impending resignation. Heidi Drockelman was hired to take Jeni's place. Heidi does have some experience though the extent of her knowledge is unknown to the company. Based on her experience, UPC may or may not decide to continue to use Jeni to update and maintain the website on a free-lance basis.

A couple of software packages are used to develop and maintain the site. These include Macromedia, specifically Dreamweaver and Fireworks, and Photoshop. If Heidi takes over the care of the website, we are unsure if she would continue to use these programs or would elect to use something else.

Aside from the comments in PHP code and the templates used for the site, there is no formal documentation.

In the interview, Jeni, on behalf of UPC, expressed reluctance to having us redesign their website. Instead, they are in favor of usability testing the website and possibly fixed problems encountered.