National Geographic's goals were to build a site that fulfilled the content needs of several Nat Geo departments, and provide a full content experience for all site visitors. As technical lead on the project, my responsibilities were to guide designers, train developers, maintain a high level of code quality, and deliver a website that is accessible by all site visitors.
One of the goals of the site was to unify several National Geographic programs under one umbrella site. To meet this need, the site went through several rounds of information architecture. This was the most crucial phase of the site, and required close collaboration between our developers and National Geographic content producers.
We used the technique of progressive enhancement to provide a rich interactive experience for advanced web browsers, while providing accessible content for less capable web browsers. Employing this technique also ensured search engines and visitors with JavaScript turned off can still reach all site content.
To ensure the future compatibility of the site, we required every page to validate as XHTML transitional. Strict adherence to doctype ensured compatibility with standard browsers of today and tomorrow.
