Events

WIGG Monthly Conversations

On the Last Monday of every month, WIGG hosts monthly conversations on our WIGG Group – General Teams channel where the team leads share recent updates from the sub-committees, and opens the floor to any topics of interest to the community.

WIGG 2025 Lecture Series

Join us in our upcoming WIGG Lecture Series. Take a deeper dive and hear updates about the work being done by the different committees and experts across campus by WIGG committee leads.

If you missed a workshop or lecture, campus community can visit Illinois Canvas to find the recordings online. The Lecture Series is being hosted by StratComs as part of their Brand Experts Program. Ensure your unit has all the tools to confidently implement the brand platform.

ILFW Drupal: May 20, 2025

Workshop description:

Is using the Illinois Drupal Framework right for my customers? That’s the question we hope to answer in this session. We’ll discuss what situations using the Illinois Drupal Framework makes sense, and when it might be better to use an alternative. Lastly, a quick demo of what it takes to get your site up and running on cPanel will also be covered.

Presenter bio:

Tyler Rubach currently leads the web team in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences which manages over 60 unit websites. He also is the chair of the WIGG Drupal group and is on the WIGG steering committee.

Date: 05/20/2025
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Location: Online
Speakers: Tyler Rubach

Tech Services Consulting Service: Apr. 8, 2025

Workshop description:

The Website Management Consulting Service guides departments in managing their websites and ensuring they meet established guidelines (e.g., marketing and branding, accessibility, privacy, and security by connecting clients to campus resources.)

The consulting offering will provide guidance and best practices for website management, including:

  • Defining web management plans that include current use cases and future needs
  • Conducting content and website inventories
  • Connecting users to campus processes and resources
  • Website strategy and information architecture planning
  • Usability evaluations
  • Migrating sites to Illinois Web Theme (Web CoE)
  • Guiding new Illinois Web Theme implementations (Web CoE)

Presenter bio:

Liz Shallenberger is a UX strategist, designer, writer, and end-user advocate. She holds an MSLIS, is a liaison with the Website Management Center of Expertise, and is active in all things Website Implementation Guidelines Group.

Dena Strong. With a MLIS degree from the iSchool, 25 years of experience in web technologies, and a personal interest in usability, accessibility, information architecture, and information flow, Dena enjoys collaborating and consulting with people across campus. Ask her about Web Workshops, the UX Lunch Club, Caffeine Break, the IT Pro Forum, and other campus connection points.

Huaqi Zhang is a UX designer with a background in finance and economics. She has a strong passion for user research and data-driven design. As a structural thinker, she really enjoys planning and writing detailed documentations, always staying true to her well-thought-out plan.

Sydney Flowers is a front-end web developer for the office of Strategic Communications and Marketing and a UX Liaison with the Website Management Center of Expertise. She is passionate about building visually stunning and user-friendly websites that prioritize accessibility and inclusivity.

Date: 04/08/2025
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Location: Online
Speakers: Liz Shallenberger, Dena Strong, Huaqi Zhang and Sydney Flowers

WordPress Updates: Mar. 27, 2025

Workshop description:

With an influx of new involvement locally and sweeping revisions to the WordPress ecosystem globally, a lot has changed over the last two years. In this session we’ll showcase the custom componentry available for campus users, highlight services for site hosting, and share resources and recommendations for developers. Join us, as we look at where we are and where we’re going with WordPress.

Presenter bio:

Robert Slater is a dev/ops engineer that has been lurking in the nooks of campus IT for decades. He’s specialized in WordPress for the last decade or so and is far, far too eager to tell you anything and everything about WordPress.                                 

Gabe Przygoda is a Senior Web Application Developer, currently coding components for WordPress alongside the Web Hosting Team in Technology Services. He serves on the Website Implementation Guidelines Group (WIGG) Steering Committee and WIGG WordPress subcommittee.

Date: 03/27/2025
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location: Online
Speaker: Robert Slater and Gabe Przygoda

Web Components V3: Feb. 6, 2025

Workshop Description: 

Learn how to use the V3 Web Components in a practical, “bare-bones” HTML presentation. During this time, we’ll focus less on the philosophy of “what the web components are” and “how were they built” and more on the “as a person who doesn’t know much about coding, how do I use these,” “how do I build a page from scratch,” and “how do I move from v2 to v3?”

Presenter Bio:

Bryan Jonker has been a web developer IT Partners at the College of Education since 2014, making sure the websites, digital signs, and technology-related communication solutions serve the college. He is also heavily involved in the Web Implementation Guidelines Group project, focusing on web components, accessibility, and analytics. 

Date: 02/06/2025
Time: 10:00 am 
Speaker: Bryan Jonker

Past Presentations

“How Did They Do That?” Under the Hood with Illinois Themed Websites
IT Proforum, Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Did you know Bevier Cafe’s menu runs on publish.illinois.edu? Or that the College of Education’s Study Abroad browser uses the Illinois Theme to present data pulled from GitHub? Join members of the Web Implementation Guidelines Group for a look under the hood of some of the coolest interfaces built with Illinois Theme components – and learn how the pieces work together so you can easily build similar interfaces for your sites.
Melissa Waller, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences; Bryan Jonker, IT Partners, College of Education; Robert Slater, Technology Services

Successful web collaborations take all kinds
WebCon, April 7, 2022
Building a successful web design strategy requires close collaboration between designers, marketers, programmers, server admins, and many others. Hear how the University of Illinois has assembled a virtual team from across the campus to roll out a new design strategy across multiple colleges and multiple content management systems, and what steps we are taking to ensure we have the people in place to keep it going.

Supporting Web Standards Across Campus
Web Con Campus Workshops, February 16, 2022
Hear from Nate Baxley about the Web Implementation Guidelines Group at Illinois and how you can take advantage of their work to help your web building faster and easier.  Also, learn about how you can join the effort and influence web standards across campus.
Watch the webinar

Campus website theme updates
IT Proforum, November 2, 2021
At the last IT Pro Forum, you heard about the new campus website brand standards. Now hear about the new developments that have happened in the last 6 months. Many new features, improved designs, more WordPress theme options, and a new Drupal theme and framework. Also, learn about the webtheme.illinois.edu website where you can stay up to date on the latest developments and get involved with the process.

Cross-Unit Collaborations — When things just have to get done
IT Proforum, June 3, 2021
There are many great committees and groups on campus that have been formed with formal charters and pre-negotiated deliverables. However, sometimes you need to bring people together quickly to work on a problem and create a solution. The Web Implementation Guidelines Group (WIGG) is a group that was formed completely organically and has now helped release a consistent website design template with implementations in several CMS across the campus. Hear how this collaboration came about, how it has been successful, what lessons you can learn from our experience and how you can become a part of our work.

Quick links from the presentation:

Delivering Consistent Web Design Templates Across Multiple Platforms
IT Proforum, June 3, 2021
There are a large variety of web publishing situations across campus today. With the push from the Chancellor last year to adopt the new branding standards, many units are searching for a way to bring their websites into compliance. The WIGG efforts have created branded themes for WordPress and Drupal and made those available to anyone who wants them. We have also created web components that can be used on any web publishing platform. Hear about how these tools were created, what features they offer, and how you can get involved in the effort to continue to improve them.

Quick links from the presentation: