Serve IT · Jan 2025 to May 2025 · Case study
Indiana PhenologyWeb work · seasonal change
Indiana Phenology Lab Serve IT work. I shaped partner pages around the staff and volunteers who keep seasonal information moving after the student team leaves. The people maintaining the system are part of the audience.
Who it is for: educators and residents looking at seasonal change. What I did: led the web work with Serve IT. Goal: people could find what they came for. Still open: the semester write-up is not filled in yet.
This page is long because the rubric asks for every row. The semester detail is not filled in yet. Empty rows stay marked ... a blank is more honest than a story I don't have yet. Where the public-safe write-up needs a boundary, you will see an honest scope note. I would rather leave a blank than invent a metric or a quote.
01 · 5 pts
Introduction / professional profile
Who you are
Jade Zhao. Informatics student at IU Bloomington Luddy (May 2027). Student Digital Humans project lead. Laurie Burns McRobbie Serve IT Clinic, Jan 2024 to present. Clinic work for partners whose staff keep the page after students leave. Jan 2025 to May 2025 I led the web work for Indiana Phenology.
Your area(s) of interest
Digital Humans, human-centred AI, UX (user experience), and business technology. This case study is the spring 2025 Indiana Phenology term.
Your technical strengths
Leading web work so educators and residents can find seasonal-change content. The full list is on Serve IT.
The kinds of work you want to do
GTM (go-to-market) engineering, AI product, and solutions work. Digital Humans is the project I keep studying. I only write down what has actually shipped.
Links
02 · 5 pts
Project overview
Problem statement
Educators and residents come here to look at seasonal change. If that content is hard to find, they leave without the thing they came for. I led the web work. Goal: they could find seasonal-change content. Rows that aren't written yet are marked under Process, Deliverables, and Reflection.
- Dates
- Jan 2025 to May 2025. [still writing: exact kickoff and handoff dates from that semester]
- Team
- [still writing: team names from that semester's roster]
- What the team as a whole was asked to do
- [still writing: the semester brief, once it is safe to publish] True line for now: web work with Serve IT. Goal: seasonal-change content easier to find.
- What my part of the work entailed
- I led the web work. Goal: people could find what they came for.
03 · 5 pts
Client description
Client: Indiana Phenology. Agency website: https://www.indianaphenology.org/. Educators, residents, and citizen scientists use the public site around seasonal change and phenology data.
About the agency
Indiana Phenology is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) founded in 2019. It partners with communities, schools, and individuals. More than 50 citizen scientists provide data. Data visualisation and data questions are part of their work. The public site runs on Wix; the client seems comfortable with data and Wix.
Mission: to increase science-based environmental stewardship by empowering Hoosiers of all ages to participate in citizen science phenology data collection.
Phenology is the timing of seasonal changes in plants and animals. It is a leading indicator of climate impacts. A plain explanation lives on their Learn page.
Educators, residents, and citizen scientists use the site for seasonal change. Our goal was to make those pages easier to find.
My personal Serve IT role on this client was Jan 2025 to May 2025 web work (see overview above). A later Serve IT Fall 2026 clinic scope for Indiana Phenology was recommendations and assessments only ... no direct student edits to the live site. That Fall 2026 roster is not claimed on this page. Clinic pattern noted in the scope: Wk 5 stakeholder research; Wk 14 final presentation. Assessment-track labels from that scope (not my personal Fall 2026 artefacts): Stakeholder Research, Style Guide, Heuristic Findings, Retrospective User Journey Maps, Website Performance Test, Mobile Testing, Accessibility Check, Presentation/Training. [still writing: personal artefacts from Jan 2025 to May 2025 web work] [still writing: team Figma]
1. What the client wanted
[still writing: quote or paraphrase from the spring 2025 semester scope once it is safe to publish] True line for now: Serve IT web work around seasonal-change content.
2. What problem you tried to solve
[still writing: client-stated problem in their words] True line for now: people came for seasonal change and needed a page that helped them find it.
3. The process you went through to reach the final solution
[still writing: short process summary once the web-work notes are written up] See also the labelled rows under Process / how you worked.
4. What that final solution is
[still writing: what the web work actually handed over] True line for now: I led the web work with Serve IT. Goal: seasonal-change content easier to find.
04 · 5 pts
Process / how you worked
True boundary for every row below: I led the web work with Serve IT. Goal: seasonal-change content easier to find. The semester detail is not filled in yet.
Research
[still writing: stakeholder research notes / public-safe summary]
Data collection
[still writing: what you learned about how educators and residents look for seasonal change]
Accessibility assessment
[still writing: accessibility checks if you did them on this project]
Wireframes
[still writing: wireframes if you made any]
Agile / sprint workflows
[still writing: how the team organised the weeks]
Testing
[still writing: how you checked that people could find the seasonal-change content]
Iteration
[still writing: what you revised before the term ended]
Technical decision-making
[still writing: technical choices you can name in public]
05 · 5 pts
Tools and technologies
Only real lines where confirmed. Unconfirmed tools stay marked.
- Figma
- [still writing: team Figma]
- Tableau
- [still writing: name the tool if you used it]
- GitHub
- Real for this portfolio: github.com/jadexzhao versions the public case study page.
- Excel
- [still writing: name the tool if you used it]
- Accessibility tools
- [still writing: name the tool if you used it]
- CMS platforms
- Wix (client site CMS). The client seems comfortable with data and Wix. [still writing: how much of the spring 2025 web work touched the live Wix site]
- APIs
- [still writing: name the tool if you used it]
- Microsoft Planner / Teams
- [still writing: name the tool if you used it]
06 · 10 pts
Deliverables / artifacts
Security-team documents must keep client privacy. Block out or remove client names and website mentions on any item shown. On this public page, do not paste private scope text, vulnerabilities, or non-public names. Indiana Phenology is the public project name and is fine.
Screenshots
[still writing: public-safe screenshot]
Dashboard images
[still writing: dashboard image if used]
Wireframes
[still writing: wireframe or annotation if used]
Reports
[still writing: spring 2025 web-work notes] Fall 2026 clinic assessment labels for this client (recommendations only; not claimed as my Fall 2026 artefacts): Stakeholder Research [still writing: ...]; Style Guide [still writing: ...]; Heuristic Findings [still writing: ...]; Retrospective User Journey Maps [still writing: ...]; Website Performance Test [still writing: ...]; Mobile Testing [still writing: ...]; Accessibility Check [still writing: ...]; Presentation/Training [still writing: ...].
Code snippets
[still writing: code snippet if relevant]
Data visualisations
[still writing: data visualisation if used]
Videos / demo links
[still writing: video or demo link if used]
Presentation slides
[still writing: presentation slides]
Before / after comparisons
[still writing: before / after if a public-safe pair exists]
Testimonials or client feedback
[still writing: attributed quote with permission, in quotation marks]
07 · 10 pts
Final reflection
The semester detail is not filled in on this page yet. Empty rows stay marked until the notes are real.
What you learned
[still writing: what I learned]
Challenges encountered
[still writing: challenges encountered]
What you would improve
[still writing: what I would improve]
Team communication lessons
[still writing: team communication lessons]
Ethical considerations
[still writing: ethical considerations]
Technical growth
[still writing: technical growth]