MrsRiley.com is a project that I started in May 2007 with the goal of creating a site that helps people make visual supports for  kids with Autism. Though it seems like this is a far cry from my prior work as a game artist, there was actually a lot in common between the two.  I still had to make a tool that simplified a complex workflow as I did as a Technical Artist. I needed to design the UI, the branding and logo. I also had a contractor build over 3000 individual Flash symbols and was responsible for managing him during the months long process. Then as his art came in, I needed to figure out how to integrate it with the system. Lots of stuff.

The first and most important part of the effort was the Flex application called PageBuilder, which is detailed in this other post. But wrapped around PageBuilder is a sophisticated site made with Drupal 6. From the start, Mrs. Riley was imagined to be a subscription site, and having an integrated forum and blog was also important. The majority of the development of the site portion was done Nick Garofalo, who I hired while he was a student at Saint-John Fisher University. For the most part, I would do the concept, design, and functionality and Nick would implement the Drupalese.

The site uses Ubercart to support credit card payments, and has a novel method of group subscriptions where one user buys a coupon code worth X uses. They can then give the code out to coworkers or friends and the site tracks who uses it.  Regardless of whether a user buys a subscription directly or via a key, they are then promoted to a new role where they can access PageBuilder.

<This post is in progress…>