Sector(s)
Project Team
Bo Simmons, PRESIDENT & FOUNDER
Angie Lane, STUDIO DIRECTOR
David Smallwood, LEAD DEVELOPER
Grady Wring, DRUPAL DEVELOPER
The Challenge:
The National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), established in 2015, is one of the pillars of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The user facilities within NNCI, which support both academic research and process development, are intended to alleviate the lack of resources including equipment and expertise. The primary challenge of the web site was making the information easy to navigate for a broad range of users including prospective researchers, current researchers, staff university members and the general public. Creating a custom import with access to university user facilities and characterization tools involved strategic planning, implementation, and testing. It was crucial for the website to have a fully responsive design layout with a restricted equipment database.
Other Highlights
W3
2017 W3 AWARDS SILVER
About the project
Cool Blue worked closely with NNCI stakeholders to determine functionality for the databases and customized search/filter functions for equipment and people (researchers and experts), assuring all required information is available and searchable. In terms of audience, marketing to non-traditional users and increasing overall percentage/number of external users (outside students, partners, & companies) were both significant goals in the development of the new site.
With an engaging interface and accessible database, the new NNCI site supports the two core components of the organization – education and outreach. Our delivery of the new site included an integrated Drupal content management system with a modern, user-friendly navigation and design across multiple devices.
Why Drupal was chosen
Customized searchable databases for NNCI Sites and Experts
Private access enrollment for new NNCI users and work flow
Custom US map for displaying facilities
Communications and Support via online forms
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
CBI Ajax loader (custom)
Provides ajax functionality for node display
Migrate Tools (custom)
Migrates tool category field values to field collection entities.
Search Routes
Provides custom routing for different search routing.
Ultimate Cron
Provides an automated way to run cron jobs, by executing them at the end of a server response.
IP Ban
Enables banning of IP addresses.
Breakpoints
Manage breakpoints and breakpoint groups for responsive designs.
Contextual links
Provides contextual links to perform actions related to elements on a page.
DBLog Filter
Logs and records system events to the database.
Field UI
User interface for the Field API.
Chaos tool
Provides a number of utility and helper APIs for Drupal developers and site builders.
