Wildflower Unitarian Universalist

I’ve always been drawn to mission-driven work, and when I joined my local Unitarian Universalist congregation, I saw website maintenance as a meaningful way to contribute while expanding my technical skills. I began with weekly content updates and gradually took ownership of larger improvement efforts. Over time, I transitioned from small edits to addressing significant accessibility and performance issues. With full autonomy and occasional support, I transformed the experience into an ongoing self-directed learning project that continues to this day.

Overlapping menu items in non-responsive menu

Old homepage design with overlapping menu

Type

Volunteer

Visit

View the live site

Built with

WordPress
PHP
CSS
WP Plugins
Figma

Project Purpose

This initiative allowed me to grow professionally while contributing to an organization I care about. I focused on making incremental improvements, prioritizing responsiveness, WCAG compliance, and user accessibility. While still in progress, the evolution of the site reflects my commitment to continuous learning and purposeful design.

Tech Stack & Approach

Platform: WordPress (inherited, multi-contributor history)
Focus Areas: Accessibility, responsive layout, performance, maintainability
Key Improvements:

Removed unnecessary plugins and resolved theme conflicts
Configured SEO tooling and optimized page load performance
Redesigned navigation structure and menu responsiveness
Updated color contrast and layout inconsistencies directly in codebase
Cleared caching issues and streamlined page rendering

I treated the inherited framework much like legacy code by respecting constraints while introducing modern improvements whenever possible.

Challenges & Lessons Learned

With no formal design background, creating a cohesive visual structure was initially daunting. I started with a rough Figma board to map existing components, and once I visualized the layout, the redesign began to take shape. Working within the limits of the existing theme taught me to problem-solve pragmatically — leveraging theme overrides where possible and introducing custom plugins only when necessary. This project reminded me that impactful improvements often start with patient iteration rather than full rebuilds.

Redesigned homepage

Rough wireframe in Figma