ITS Web Services: Web design and consulting for the USC community

Why Use Web Services?

Web Services helps schools and other units at USC rethink their branding and web strategies to project a cutting-edge, professional image by leveraging the latest technology in web design.

We have a long track record of success in creating dynamic, USC-branded websites that are easy to update and easy to expand as your needs evolve. Learn more...

Contact us about your next project

  1. NewUSC_News
  2. NewGlobal Conversation in London
  3. New2012 Festival of Books at USC
  4. Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC
  5. USC
  6. Ming Hsieh Institute
  7. USC Provost
  8. USC School of Pharmacy Research Hilghlights
  9. USC Programs in the Biomedical and Biological Sciences
  10. USC Global Conference
  11. USC Emeriti Center
  12. USC President
  13. About USC
  14. USC Schaeffer Health Policy Center
  15. USC Academics
  16. USC Research
  17. USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture
  18. 2011 Festival of Books at USC
  19. The Dalai Lama at USC
  20. USC Information Technology Services
  21. USC Leadership Delegation to India
  22. USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging
  23. USC Roski School of Fine Arts
  24. USCSchoolofPharmacy
  25. USC Energy Institute
  26. USC Wireless Coverage
  27. Tobacco Education and Materials Lab
  28. USC Photo Gallery
  29. USC Office of Religious Life
  30. USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy
  31. USC Reader
  32. USC on Twitter
  33. USC Alumni Association
  34. Center for Scholarly Technology
  35. The Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy
  36. mobile.usc.edu
  37. Undergraduate Education
  38. Our Communities
  39. USC Price School of Public Policy
  40. USC Technology-Enhanced Learning
  41. USC_Fisher
  42. USC_Globalization
  43. Real_Estate
  44. USC_Maps
  45. CREATE Homeland Security Center
  46. USC Rossier School of Education
  47. Politics_and_Society
  48. Chief Information Officer
  49. MyUSC
  50. USCThorntonSchoolofMusic
  51. USCSCAMPUS
  52. USCScheduleofClasses
  53. USCMasterPlan
  54. USCRehabScience
  55. USCZilkha
  56. USCHealthNow
  57. USCFederalRelations
  58. USCBedrosianCenter
  59. USCWiSE
  60. USCStudentAffairs
  61. USCVisualProcessingLaboratory
  62. USCEventsCalendar
  63. USCCenterforVisionScienceandTechnology
  64. USCInternalMedicine
  65. USCNeuroscience

Our Collaborative, User-Centered Process

Effective web design is driven by a deep understanding of both the organization and its target audiences. Web Services works with you to analyze your organization’s needs and the needs of your audience to ensure that your website will meet those needs. Our process is divided into five, distinct phases:

Step1

Discovery and Research

During the discovery and research phase of the process, we interview you and your key stakeholders to determine the overall goals for your website and learn about your target audience. This allows us to outline the project’s key objectives, as well as identify metrics for tracking success.

Deliverables
  • Preliminary Findings Document
Step2

Strategy and Concept Development

During the second phase of the project, we apply the information that we acquired in the discovery phase to recommend a solution that is tailored to your particular needs. Prioritizing audience, content development, and functionality, we provide a detailed timeline of the goals and scope of the project.

Deliverables
  • Content Priority Document
  • User Profiles and Scenarios
  • Project Plan
Step3

Design

During the design phase, we translate the project's strategy into a designed user experience. Our aim is to produce a site structure and graphic design that best address your requirements and your users' needs.

Deliverables
  • Information Architecture
  • Wireframes
  • Visual Design
  • Content Delivery Plan
Step4

Building and Implementation

During the fourth phase, we build your web pages using standards-compliant HTML CSS code. We then migrate your content into a content management system, ensuring that it is easy for you to update. Finally, we test the beta, or prelaunch, version website in all supported web browsers to verify a consistent user experience.

Deliverables
  • Beta Version of Website
Step5

Deployment and Launch

During this stage, we publish your website and provide the tools and training you need to update your content and maintain your website.

Deliverables
  • Online Style Guide
  • Pattern Library
  • CMS Training

Web Services charges $125 per hour for its web design, consulting and programming services.

Web Design and Consulting

Website Design

Explore our portfolio and process.

We offer a number of services and tools to enhance your website, including.

  • Google Search Engine
  • Content Management/Publishing Systems
  • Website and Search Analysis
  • Blog Software
  • HTML E-mail
  • USC Events Calendar with standard feeds
  • USC News Feeds

Web Programming Services

Web Services offers a variety of custom content publishing software to fit our clients’ needs.

Portal and Collaboration Services

Web Services manages USC’s MyUSC portal project and the associated collaboration software. If you are interested in learning more about the USC’s MyUSC, please contact Candy Borland, director of Web Services, at borland@usc.edu.

How to find us

Our offices are located on the third floor of 3434 South Grand Avenue (CAL on campus maps). Getting to 3434 Grand.

Why Use Web Services?

Our expertise includes interactive media, community and user engagement, content publishing, and content aggregation. Our portfolio of completed projects includes the primary USC homepage and website as well as websites for many schools and units with a diverse range of audiences and business needs.

Web Services offers USC customers advantages that outside web firms are unable to match. Our software runs on the central web hosting infrastructure housed in USC's new, state-of-the-art data center. We provide customers with the complete technical infrastructure needed to develop and publish websites at USC, including systems capable of exchanging data with other USC websites and applications, such as the University Communications news database and the University Communications events calendar. We create newsfeeds that can be imported into USC's portal and other websites, or picked up by individual users.

As a USC group, we can assure you that you will have continuity of support in the years to come. We will help you take advantage of USC's web infrastructure and capabilities as they evolve over time and will be here for you when you need us.

Staff

  • Candace Borland

    Candace Borland is the director of ITS Web Services. She has over 20 years of experience managing information technology groups and projects. Her past 12 years have been focused on projects that create new web sites, web communities, and web infrastructure to enable these. In 2001 Candace joined USC with the assignment to rebuild USC's web services department and central website and then to help departments across USC optimize their use of the Web.

    Candace has a particular interest in the use of websites and web applications to build online communities. Her web experience began in 1995 as the founding manager of ArtsEdNet, the Getty Trust's successful early effort to use the web to create an online educational community to support K-12 arts teachers. She also has experience in Internet startups, having served as the vice president of research and development at an online education dotcom.

    Candace earned her B.A. at Rice University and her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in educational psychology, with a specialization in applied statistics and research design.

  • Cameron Bates

    Cameron Bates is a web developer for Web Services, developing websites and web applications for a wide range of organizations at USC. He specializes in building sites in a number of content management systems and developing web-based applications for mobile phones.

    Prior to joining USC in 2008, Cameron was a web developer for six years at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. He earned his bachelor’s degree in technical communication from the University of Washington.

  • Lynn Boyden

    Lynn Boyden joined Web Services in 2010 as information architect. Lynn also teaches information architecture as an adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her information architecture practice has encompassed heading the Los Angeles office of FatDUX, as well as working at other agencies, institutions and corporations. Her previous experience includes serving as a user experience designer for Yahoo!, information architect for Symantec and as administrator of UCLA’s Moving Image Archive Studies program.

    Lynn earned her B.A. from Rice University and MLIS from UCLA with a specialization in information systems and organizations of information. She is a member of the American Society for Information Science. She is published widely and is a frequent speaker in the field of information architecture—including organizing and presenting at the annual Information Architecture Slam workshop since 2004.

  • Ellen Castillo

    Since 2006, Ellen Castillo has been administrative services coordinator for Web Services, where she provides a wide range of administrative support for the group. She joined USC in 1998 as part of the Center for Scholarly Technology, which housed Web Services at that time.

    Ellen earned her bachelor's degree in accounting from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Before joining USC, she worked for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

  • Samantha Chilton

    Samantha Chilton is director of design and development for Web Services and leads the group's team of designers and developers. Since 2001, she has managed the group's website projects to ensure that they are successfully completed—on time and within budget. Samantha also serves as an information architect for the group, specializing in organizing information in ways that result in meaningful user experiences.

    Before joining Web Services, Samantha worked as a program manager at the Getty Education Institute, working on one of the Getty's first websites, ArtsEdNet, an online community for art educators.

    Samantha holds a B.A. and Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies from Leicester University, England and an M.A. in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University. She is a member of the Information Architecture Institute.

  • Robert Doiel

    Robert Doiel is a software engineer for Web Services and focuses on web application architecture and implementation. He has been at USC since 1992, writing applications in diverse languages, implementing database architectures, and expanding software development methods and practices for various departments.

    Robert's work emphasizes front- and back-end integration through web service architectures and design patterns. He has developed a number of open application programming interfaces (API) for Web Services, such as the central USC Events Calendar.

    Robert earned his B.S. in computer science at USC and his M.A. in humanities at Mount Saint Mary's College, Los Angeles.

  • Dan Heller

    Dan Heller is a senior designer for Web Services. Over the past six years, he has developed successful designs for a wide range of organizations at USC. His design work incorporates cutting edge interactive functionality, visual aesthetics, and Ajax techniques. Dan is committed to creating an online user experience that is engaging and user-friendly.

    Dan received his bachelor's degree from USC.

  • Ian Hunter

    Ian Hunter is a technical project specialist for Web Services, managing website redesigns for numerous campus clients—guiding them from the discovery process through development—and overseeing such projects as the myPortfolio student blogging pilot. He also manages Web Services’ student workers.

    Before joining USC, Ian served as a director of the Shotgun Space, a gallery in Los Angeles, and did freelance post production work for Fredrik Nilsen Studio. He received his bachelor’s degree in photography from USC and is working toward certification as a Project Management Professional.

  • Louise Marks

    Louise Marks is a software engineer for Web Services and focuses on the development of custom PHP/MYSQL applications to support the special content publishing needs of USC customers. Louise has considerable expertise in search engines, including Google search appliances.

    Louise earned her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  • Paola Rico

    Paola Rico is a designer for Web Services, helping schools and units across USC enhance their branding and web strategies by combining effective design with leading-edge interactive technology. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, she earned a master of visual arts degree from Javeriana University.

    As art director for Andres Carne de Res, Paola conceptualized events for Gwen Stefani, Bjork, Marilyn Manson, and Moby, as well as developing brand images for corporate clients including Visa, Mazda, and Renault. Paola also served as lead designer for Nikki Beach Worldwide and creative director for the travel company Limited Edition Leisure.