UCLA SHARE — Participant-Facing Website and Research Resource Systems
A public study website and three custom, staff-managed research resource systems.
Project Overview
Organization: UCLA Stress, Health, and Autism Research Study (SHARE)
Context: Academic human-subjects research serving autistic adolescents and emerging adults
Project Period: October 2025–present
Services Provided: Requirements, information architecture, design and development, copy, responsive implementation, accessibility review, custom components, deployment, hosting, updates, and maintenance
Systems Delivered: Public study site, Participant Roadmap, Video Library, Publications Directory, and contact pathways
Scale: Three custom resource systems; one trained staff administrator; ongoing hosting and maintenance
Verified Results: Public site and three staff-managed custom systems delivered in approximately four weeks; launched in October 2025 and stable under ongoing maintenance
Research Context
SHARE studies how stress affects the physical health, emotional health, and everyday lives of autistic teens and young adults. The team works with autistic people, families, and clinicians using surveys, interviews, and biomarker tools. SHARE Bio applies this research more specifically to cardiometabolic health in autism. Autistic adolescents and emerging adults are the primary audience; families and clinicians are secondary audiences.
The Initial Need
There was no existing SHARE site. A UCLA-platform site had been considered, but it could not provide enough flexibility for the accessible, neurodivergent-informed direction or anticipated participant components. As research materials were reviewed, the project expanded from a public site into determining how participant information should be structured, presented, and maintained.
The result needed to explain the research, support prospective and current participants, serve families and clinicians, provide resources and publications, give staff control over updates, and establish a foundation for interactive components.
Requirements and Design Direction
I worked primarily with the principal investigator and research assistants through meetings, study documents, workflow knowledge, and conversations. The team supplied participant-informed direction based on subject expertise. I translated it into information architecture, content, responsive behavior, interaction design, accessibility, and publishing systems. I adapted existing mission and research materials into copy approved by the principal investigator.
Participant Roadmap
The Roadmap lets staff create and maintain a guided explanation of the study process without programming. Predefined slide layouts include image-only, side-by-side, and image-with-header formats. Slides are organized into sections and positioned within the overall participant sequence.
Each record stores its type, sequence position, section or step, order within the section, media, written content, and supporting points. The system automatically generates participant navigation and menu structure. Staff select a layout, add content, and assign position rather than manually constructing a tutorial.
Participants can use the result on desktop or mobile to understand the process, review what participation involves, and locate information for a specific stage.
Video and Publication Systems
Video Library
The Video Library gives staff a structured way to maintain participant resources. Records contain title, description, duration, link, and thumbnail. Supported links can provide source metadata for review, and staff can replace the source thumbnail with a site-specific image. Captions and transcripts are provided by the team.
The interface follows the broader design approach: present material clearly without unnecessary visual or cognitive activity.
Publications Directory
Publication records can contain title, authors, description, date, journal, PDF, external link, and card image. Staff may provide a PDF, a link, or both. DOI import retrieves available bibliographic information into an editable, reviewable record before publication. The public directory supports organization by author, date, and journal, avoiding manual creation and formatting of separate pages.
Participant Contact and Protected Systems
Public contact functionality routes inquiries to appropriate staff. Protected activity stays in research-administration systems. The site stores no patient health information, survey responses, screening data, or study records. Secure platforms such as REDCap handle screening and protected participant data, separating public communication from research administration.
Accessibility and Interaction Design
Implementation included appropriate ARIA attributes, alternative text, semantic HTML, screen-reader considerations, responsive behavior, contrast review, and reduced-motion considerations.
Motion is selective. Frequent interactions such as moving between roadmap slides use brief transitions. Less frequent elements such as the roadmap menu can use more visible movement when it clarifies a state change. The aim is orientation without persistent or elaborate animation.
Administration, Deployment, and Maintenance
Staff can add videos and publications, revise the Roadmap, update team members and participant instructions, modify links, and maintain general content. Structured fields and defined content types keep routine updates independent of development work. One staff member has been trained to manage the site.
I handled the domain, hosting, development, custom components, deployment, backups, updates, and ongoing maintenance. The initial build took about two weeks, followed by roughly two weeks of copy refinement, layout testing, and iteration.
The principal investigator and research assistants tested the site. Revisions primarily concerned layout, navigation, terminology, and content—for example, replacing “RA” with “Research Assistant” or “Researcher.” The site launched in October 2025 and has remained stable. Later work has extended its three custom systems rather than corrected underlying failures.
Current Operation
- A public site designed for the participant population
- A guided roadmap maintained through the CMS
- A structured participant video library
- A DOI-enabled publications directory
- Staff-controlled study and participant information
- Public contact routing
- Separation of public information from protected research systems
- Ongoing hosting, backups, updates, and maintenance
The site provides a common public foundation while allowing study-specific guidance and resources to develop as separate custom systems.