Vijaya Prasad

Building an Accessible, On-Brand Microsite Under Bureau-Wide Constraints

eca.state.gov | Content Lead, Mobomo — PASC, Department of State

The Problem

Leadership mandated 508 compliance across PASC, but the org lacked a shared understanding of what that meant in practice — accessibility standards touch every discipline differently, from alt text and heading structure in web content to captioning in video, contrast and typography in design, and image descriptions in social media. Without a common baseline, compliance responsibility was unclear. That ambiguity created real risk on the ECA microsite project specifically. The site was a temporary conversion that needed to carry over all mandated content while still delivering an easy, coherent user experience — and it had to visually match the existing state.gov look and feel, so it couldn't be treated as a standalone build with its own design latitude.

The Approach

The first move was establishing a shared baseline: training the full PASC team on 508 compliance across disciplines — video and photography, design, web, and social media — so accessibility was understood at the point of creation, not patched on afterward. That training fed directly into a formalized division of responsibility: processes now define what PASC is responsible for versus what content is expected to arrive with already in place — copy finalized, content cleared, and 508 compliance already addressed for digital assets like color combinations and alt text. This shifted PASC's role from being the default compliance checkpoint to being a safety net, catching gaps rather than doing the foundational compliance work itself. For content clearance more broadly, the team aggregated existing content identified as essential to the new site, then issued a bureau-wide request asking each department to validate their content before launch — leaning on established departmental processes rather than building a new review system from scratch. Executive buy-in gave the request legitimacy across departments. On the site itself, information architecture took priority over visual novelty: the focus was intuitive navigation and findability, with a modern look and feel that still felt seamless coming from the rest of state.gov.

The Outcome

The site launched on time and is fully 508 compliant. PASC now has subject matter experts on 508 across every content discipline, creating multiple catch points rather than a single point of failure. The team's own WordPress expertise means ongoing updates happen fast and in-house, rather than through a slower administrative process.

Scaling Structure Across Legacy Systems: Consolidating eca.state.gov

ECA, Department of State | Content Lead, Mobomo — Status: In Progress

The Problem

ECA's web presence had grown the way many bureaus' sites do — one program or office building its own site as a need arose, with no unified plan behind it. Over time this produced 6-7 separate sites, built independently, running on at least two different content management systems, several on dated, aging versions. Each site had its own look, structure, and technical foundation, meaning there was no consistent user experience moving between them, and no shared content model to build on. With leadership buy-in secured for a full relaunch, the mandate was to consolidate these sites under one umbrella — a single, uniform site with a consistent look and feel.

The Approach

The first step was a content audit across all 6-7 sites — cataloging what existed, where it lived, and what CMS it ran on. Because ECA sites carry government-mandated content requirements, like specific meeting announcements, part of the audit wasn't about judging content on relevance or cutting what seemed weak — it was about making sure every piece of required content had a defined place in the new, consolidated structure.

Where It Stands

This project is in active development. Beyond the content audit and mandated-content framework, the team has completed a comprehensive audience analysis — building out personas and user journeys to identify where the current fragmented experience breaks down for real users. Those journey maps are now informing early conversations about how the new information architecture can directly address the gaps they surfaced, rather than structuring the site around organizational convenience left over from the original six-site setup.

Building a Content Strategy Framework from Scratch: “The Connection”

Cetera Financial Group (Contract) | Internal Communications Specialist

The Problem

“The Connection,” Cetera Financial Group's intranet platform serving thousands of financial advisors and internal staff, existed without any dedicated ownership. Content was posted ad hoc, with no one person responsible for the platform and no one actively ideating content that would actually resonate with an internal financial-advisor audience. The result was a channel with reach but no real strategy behind what it delivered.

The Approach

I took ownership of the platform by building a forward-looking content calendar, replacing ad hoc posting with planned, intentional content. To support that cadence, I created digital content for a shared repository, giving the team a bank of ready-to-use material rather than scrambling to generate something new for every post. To find content that would actually resonate with an internal financial-advisor audience, I attended Employee Resource Group meetings to source real stories directly from employees — grounding the content strategy in what was actually happening across the organization rather than generic corporate messaging.

The Outcome

This was a short-term contract engagement, so downstream impact wasn't something I was in place to measure. What the role did produce: an ownership model where none had existed before, a forward-looking content calendar, a content repository the team could continue drawing from, and a story-sourcing process connecting communications to real employee experience. The framework itself was the deliverable, built to outlast the length of the contract.

Scaling Intranet Content — 40+ Department Sites in 3 Years

City National Bank | Digital Content & Communications Specialist, Lead Trainer

The Problem

City National Bank’s intranet had grown organically for a decade with little real ownership. It was still built on static HTML—not a content management system—so every update required manual, page-by-page edits, with no scalable way to maintain consistency. Departments had wildly inconsistent layouts and uneven content depth, with some maintaining barely any presence at all. With no leadership mandate or dedicated budget, any migration would have to be driven through influence and cross-departmental buy-in rather than executive directive.

The Approach

I evaluated the new CMS’s capabilities and constraints, then translated them into publishing standards and template options that gave every department a consistent structural foundation. We rolled out the migration department by department: the initial launch delivered five major department sites fully built and live, while the rest were iframed in as a temporary bridge until their staged migrations. I tracked remaining departments, progress, and site status throughout.

As lead trainer, I built direct relationships with each department’s contacts, assessed their needs and technical capacity, and either built their site and trained them on updates or trained them to build it themselves—remaining an ongoing resource after launch either way.

The Outcome

The full migration off the iframe bridge took about three years; every department was trained and had built out its new pages. That standardized foundation later enabled City National Bank to quickly stand up a COVID-19 Communications hub, centralizing Small Business Loan guidance, Return-to-Office policy, and real-time location status for employees during a fast-moving crisis.