Our Work

Services Provided

When the Arizona Transit Association (AzTA) came to Hop Studios in June 2023, they were looking for maintenance assistance with their website. AzTA is a non-profit, statewide organization committed to bettering public transportation for Arizona communities by providing leadership in funding, advocacy, and education. They enlisted Hop Studios’ help in improving their website’s security, performance, and functionality.

We upgraded their ExpressionEngine CMS from EE6 to EE7 to enhance security, improve performance, and modernize the user experience. We also upgraded PHP for compatibility, as well as several add-ons including CartThrob Pro, FreeformLite, Low Alphabet, and JCOGS Image.

We also assisted AzTA with PCI compliance. Any website that processes credit card transactions needs to be aware of PCI compliance to ensure the security and protection of sensitive data. The first step was migrating the server to Liquid Web. Liquid Web offers PCI-compliant hosting environments that satisfy the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements.

AzTA also wanted to improve the functionality of their event management dashboard and the reliability of exporting attendee data. With several events happening throughout the year, they wanted a better and more reliable report of all attendees with first names, last names, companies, and titles. We used a JSON object to store attendee information and created a custom template to display the data in an easy-to-export format.

One of the often overlooked, though increasingly vital, parts of a website is accessibility. Web accessibility means designing and developing websites so everyone, including people experiencing disabilities, can use them effectively. To improve accessibility on AzTa’s site, we added ARIA labels to pagination links, allowing individuals who use screen readers to know where the “next page,” “last page,” “previous page,” and “first page” links are located. We also added focus styles for the main navigation, allowing users using a keyboard to interact with the site to access all site sections using the tab button.

It’s easy to think of flashy design changes as significant website upgrades, but not all improvements are visual. For example, Hop Studios optimized AzTa’s 404 page to improve the user experience by including links and guidance to relevant content rather than leaving them stranded. As a bonus, this reduces bounce rates. These changes also substantially impact SEO and Google rankings, which are key site metrics.