Overview

Before Fall 2025, digital copies of the physical commencement program were shared on the web as PDF. Because of WWU's accessibility commitment and requirements for meeting that commitment, that usually meant remediating the PDF for accessibility. Making sure the 60+ page PDF was accessible required 16+ hours of expert time just to make the document usable for the wide audience commencement has.

Goal

The goal was to produce a web-based commencement program experience, which provided all the same info as a PDF version would in a more modern design package. Since many pages are re-used across ceremonies, the hope was also to make it as easy as possible to update the content as needed, and use modern tooling to automatically build larger pages of content. 

The commencement team also wanted to make sure a web version could still convey the same level of celebration and excitement that the print design usually does.

Strategy

Key pieces to the strategy included:

  • Converting key program content into webpages, using Drupal with its Ashlar 6 theme and related web components/patterns.
  • Ensure accessible content markup and structure, satisfying WCAG 2.2 criteria.
  • Re-working existing graduate views to include more degree/program data, to easily generate the listing of graduates by college already provided by the commencement team.
  • Use components and layout design that convey more a sense of academic accomplishment and celebration:
    • Card blocks for graduate slides
    • Image with description for photo-heavy pages
  • Add multiple means of navigation to recreate the sense of flipping through a program:
    • Previous/next pager links
    • Page menu for skipping back or ahead to particular pages 

Results

The end result was a Fall 2025 commencement program that was easy to get to and load on a mobile device. Since webpages tend to be smaller in data, this also makes it faster to load with a campus and gym full of people, many using a mobile device to view the program. 

The website was also made accessible more easily by using Drupal, which supports more accessible markup out of the box, and building content with components we've already built and vetted for accessibility. 

The site should also be much easier to update, unpublish or add pages as needed for editors already familiar with using Drupal.