Overview
CAZOVA (Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association) is the regional governing body responsible for overseeing volleyball development and tournaments across several Caribbean territories.
The organization required a modern digital platform capable of supporting tournament communication, organizational updates, and regional engagement among athletes, federations, administrators, and fans.
The project involved rebuilding the association's outdated website into a structured, maintainable platform capable of managing sports events, news updates, and official documents.
The Problem
Prior to the redesign, the existing website had remained largely unchanged for many years and no longer supported the operational needs of the organization.
Key issues included:
- outdated design and user experience
- difficulty updating content and events
- poor organization of information
- lack of centralized tournament data
- limited accessibility for users across the Caribbean
Additionally, much of the existing content — including media and documents — was locked within the legacy website, requiring careful extraction and migration to avoid losing historical information.
My Role
I led the project end-to-end, managing the full lifecycle of the website development process.
My responsibilities included:
- client consultation and requirements gathering
- UX planning and information architecture
- UI design and layout structure
- WordPress development
- plugin integration and configuration
- content migration and website data scraping
- custom plugin development
- CMS setup and administrator usability
- ongoing maintenance and updates
One additional step that was not originally part of the project scope was scraping the legacy website to recover historical content and images, ensuring continuity of records and preserving the organization's digital history.
Approach
The main goal of the redesign was to transform the website into a centralized information hub for Caribbean volleyball.
The design focused on three priorities:
- clear access to tournament information
- easy content management for administrators
- accessible navigation for a wide regional audience
This required restructuring the site's content hierarchy to prioritize:
- tournaments and fixtures
- organizational announcements
- documents and official publications
- media and news updates
The interface was designed to be simple, structured, and mobile-friendly to accommodate users accessing information during live events or while traveling.
Implementation
The site was developed using WordPress, selected for its flexibility and ease of use for non-technical administrators.
To support sports-specific functionality, the SportsPress plugin was integrated to manage:
- tournament schedules
- match fixtures
- competition structures
- team and player data
A custom child theme was developed to tailor the design and layout to the organization's branding and functional needs.
Additionally, a custom WordPress plugin was developed to handle specific tasks such as simplified date formatting and filtering for event displays, ensuring information appeared clearly and consistently across the site.
Key Features
The new platform introduced several important capabilities:
- tournament and match schedules
- event and competition management
- news and blog updates
- document and resource showcase
- organizational information pages
- mobile-friendly navigation
- easy CMS publishing tools for administrators
These features allow the organization to publish and maintain content independently while keeping tournament information accessible to a regional audience.
Challenges
One of the most significant challenges during the project involved implementing the event and competition structures.
At the start of development, I did not have prior knowledge of the rules and operational structure of volleyball tournaments.
To properly design the event system, I conducted independent research to understand:
- volleyball tournament formats
- scoring systems
- match scheduling structures
- how competitions are recorded and organized
This research informed how the event system was configured within the website and ensured that tournament data could be represented accurately.
Outcome
The redesigned platform now functions as a central digital hub for Caribbean volleyball, supporting both organizational communication and public engagement.
Key improvements include:
- significantly improved usability and navigation
- centralized tournament information
- simplified publishing tools for administrators
- preserved historical content from the legacy website
- a modern, professional digital presence for the organization
The platform also allows the organization to maintain and update its own content without requiring constant technical intervention.
Skills Demonstrated
This project demonstrates capabilities in:
