Client project
Prof. Dr. Lisa Y. Haller: from a WordPress site to a fast, accessible website
The website of the social policy professor ran on WordPress with Elementor. In March 2024 the newly conceived site went live: concept, design, frontend and PHP implementation were all mine.
- Period
- Relaunch in March 2024
- Role
- Concept, design, frontend, PHP integration
At a glance
100
PageSpeed performance on desktop, previously around 60 out of 100
93
PageSpeed performance on mobile, previously around 60 out of 100
No CMS
no plugin updates, none of the security gaps of a site builder
Data-minimal
YouTube only after a click, all libraries hosted locally instead of on third-party servers
Measured with PageSpeed Insights on 4 November 2026.
Tech stack
- PHP
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Bootstrap 5
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Schema.org
Starting point
The previous website ran on WordPress with the Elementor page builder and a standard theme. Its PageSpeed score was around 60 out of 100 on both desktop and mobile.
The goal was a contemporary, professional appearance with a clear content structure and responsive design – accessible and fast.
Approach
Concept & information architecture
The content was restructured: a home page with a topic overview and latest news, plus About, Projects, Publications, Talks & Workshops, Press, Media and Contact.
Design & responsive frontend
A calm, readable layout based on Bootstrap 5 with its own stylesheet. The logo is an SVG, images are served as WebP with a JPG fallback.
Technology & performance
PHP without a CMS or framework, libraries hosted locally instead of via a CDN. For load time: font-display swap, fetchpriority for the largest image and a smaller image variant on smartphones.
Accessibility, privacy & contact
YouTube videos only load after a click and their thumbnails are hosted locally (GDPR). A honeypot protects the contact form from spam.
