The Terryberry Company, North America’s leading recognition program provider, developed a new peer-to-peer recognition solution. The Give A Wow! peer recognition program is an online, subscription-based solution that allows any coworker to nominate a peer for going above and beyond. Terryberry invited Elexicon to design and build a website to promote and create awareness for their new Give A Wow! product.
Challenge
The user audience for Give A Wow! is significantly younger than that of their primary recognition programs. The main Terryberry site is designed to appeal to an older audience, so they wanted a clean and hip feel for their new site that at the same time did not offend or alienate any of their older audience who may be the purchaser of the program.
Solution
After some competitor research, Elexicon’s AD decided on a strategic design approach to meet the client’s needs. We developed a microsite that features an intuitive, yet visually appealing, Flash interface that offers users quick and informative access to key points of the Give a Wow! program. The site was designed with clean lines for a crisp, modern appeal and with simple icons to direct users to featured information. The design blends a clean, hip and minimalist feel with business sophistication that appeals to both the young, up-and-coming audience as well as seasoned professionals.
Visit giveawow.com to see more!
I recently had an opportunity to meet some bright high school students in a software engineering workshop at Ferris State University’s downtown Grand Rapids campus. I also spent some time with their instructors as well. If these kids are a snapshot of our future innovators, then West Michigan stands an excellent chance of remaining on the forefront of technology-related industries. Our challenge will be to keep them here for to return here after college.
The instructors have a terrific attitude toward working with local industries and corporations to develop talent in schools like Ferris, Grand Valley and Grand Rapids Community College. I’m looking forward to strengthening Elexicon’s relationship with these instructors and schools. We have a great resource in these facilities, teachers and students and the West Michigan business community needs to support them in any way we can. They are definitely reaching out to us with bright talent and new ideas. If we’re not there to reach back, there are other cities and regions who will gladly take them.
As a web designer, I’m always searching the internet for emerging trends and what would be considered ‘best-practice’ for how websites are being built. A layout that I see as being quite popular right now is using large background images in the design of the website, be that image a picture or a graphic of some sort. (Take our site, for example.)
Building a design this way has its advantages—you’re able to make a strong visual statement to the viewer as soon as they come to your website, breaking up the visual weight of the webpage while creating a sense of depth and drama—but there are a number of things to keep in mind if you choose a layout that implements this concept.
SCREEN SIZE & RESOLUTION
One of the most common problems with large backgrounds is that they need to work with many different screen resolutions. We as designers here at Elexicon test and re-test our sites that we build on different browsers and operating systems, as well as different screen resolutions to ensure that the designs display properly. A good resource for cross-testing on different browser platforms at once is BrowserShots.
It’s important to build the background image so that when it’s replicated in the browser, it looks correct. One way of doing this is in the way that you create the image, as well as with CSS (cascading style sheets).
As a best recommended practice, use large images above 1700 pixels wide. By doing this, you will cover almost 95% of the display sizes that are available currently. To cover the minority that may see the whole image, it’s good to blend the image into the background color of the background, which you also specify in the CSS.
BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth is the amount of data that is being moved from one place to another; specifically in this case, from the website server, to the viewer’s browser.
Large backgrounds usually equate to large file sizes which can lead to a big impact on bandwidth and as well as the way the user experiences your website. By using large graphics, a website’s load time can increase significantly.
Because of this, it’s essential that we optimize the images by using appropriate image resolution and format, as well as optimizing the website’s other resources (such as the CSS files that are being targeted, as well as Javascript files, etc.).
You can create a really impressive visual statement by working a large image or graphic into the background of your website, but it’s important that it’s done correctly. Otherwise you risk hurting the performance of your website. Rest assured that the design we build at Elexicon will accomplish this and much more.
Could you imagine what it would be like if you weren’t able to travel on the roads, but everyone around you could? Think about how difficult it would be to get from place to place. The ability to gather and communicate, and heck, do business would be greatly limited, wouldn’t you think? I think that this same concept could apply for a business or organization that is considering a website, but hasn’t put one together yet.
Think of the Internet as your road (it is the information super highway after all) and you’re (potential) website or business as a customer’s destination. If you’re still relying solely on print advertising and word of mouth to expand your company’s marketability, it’s like trying to get from place-to-place in your car without driving on roads—it’s clunky, slow, and in the long run it’s going to be expensive. (Can you imagine the repair costs for driving your sedan off road?!).
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for those types mediums of advertising anymore. There absolutely is. But take a moment and consider a few reasons why you should consider adding a website to those mediums you may already use.
Cheaper and more flexible than print advertising
Having a web presence is much different than print advertising in that web space is cheap, and your ‘advertisement’ is more accessible for a longer period of time. Also, content can be changed easily (either through a content management system or your web master) and you can reach a global audience instantly.
All day, every day.
Don’t you hate when you have to turn a potential customer away because they call 5 minutes after your shop closes? Think about how many people you may have missed because the office was closed for a public holiday. With a website, you’re ‘open for business’ all day, every day of the year, and all it takes is a click of the mouse.
Convenience
When was the last time you actually looked up a phone number or information in the phone book? Isn’t it easier to simply search for a company’s information on the internet? By offering this type of convenience, you create a point of reference, and with that touch of individualized customer service, you add value to your offering. As a result, your customers experience a higher level of satisfaction.
These are just a few reasons why having a website is important for companies. Talk with someone at Elexicon for a more in-depth look at how we can put together a web strategy that is sure to add all these things and more to your organization.
Take a moment and think of your home, whatever that may be. What makes that dwelling more than just a living space? Many would say that it’s considered a home because it’s a reflection of the entire image of the individual. (C’mon, we all have our favorite chair or special room). I think the same holds true for your website. (It is called a ‘home’ page after all, right?) Why shouldn’t your home page be the most compelling and attention-getting page of your web site?
Because of this, I think it’s even more vital for individuals, companies and organizations to really look at their current home pages (or take this into consideration while planning their web development strategy) to see how effective their being with portraying their company image. Face it, you only have a matter of seconds when a new viewer comes to your website to capture their attention. If you can’t accomplish this, they’ll be gone quicker than they came.
A Few Things to Consider…
Information layout:
It’s important to look at how the information on your site reads. Where does your eye want to follow when you initially look at the site?
Content Length:
Short paragraphs and tid-bits of text trump long amounts of text any day, especially on a home page. Let the viewer have the option to continue reading if they choose, shown with a link to the full information.
Discernable navigation:
It’s important that the web visitor can figure out how to get to the accommodating pages on the website easily. This is accomplished with clear navigation displayed prominently.
There are of course a large number of other things to keep in mind when developing a good home page, but each client is different, and with their differences come different needs and requirements, but I think that these three areas described are pretty universal, whether you’re a multi-million dollar global enterprise, or a local coffee shop looking to expand brand visualization.
Talk with someone at Elexicon to see what can be done with your site to really make a great first impression, and how we can help turn the first page of your website into a really dynamic ‘home’ page. (And maybe we’ll even throw in that favorite chair in the process.)
Elexicon has completed and helped launch a new web site design and identity system for Systems Maintenance Services, Inc. Based in Hudson, MA with locations nation-wide, SMS is a leading provider of expert professional maintenance services for corporate IT systems. Elexicon completely overhauled the company’s logo and product identity system and wrapped the new look and feel around the re-launch of their web presence.
Elexicon client Harris Corporation, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, is sponsoring the nearby Orlando Magic for the NBA playoffs. Elexicon had the opportunity to provide some web graphics and animations to support the sponsorship so a couple snippets of our work is thereby getting a larger audience than usual which is, well, neat. Calvin created an animation for Amway Arena’s huge LED boards, and Jennifer supplied a sponsorship banner for the Magic’s web site (it’s a rotating sponsorship so the Harris banner may not appear initially). Good stuff.
I noticed a couple conversations on Facebook today about the fact that there is no “Dislike” button. You have the ability to click and state that you “Like” a friend’s status or post, but you can’t “Dislike” it. There is a FB group dedicated to convincing Facebook to add a thumbs-down button. Personally I hope this never happens. Isn’t there enough “dislike” in the real world?
Organic’s ThreeMinds blog posted some interesting links about lessons information architects can learn from regular architects (’regular’ for lack of a better terms … these folks are anything but regular). While this overall ideas is, of course, nothing new, these five lessons are all fresh takes with keen insights. Lesson #1, “start with the joints (points of stress)” definitely caught my attention. Sounds like this conference speaker they’ve met is writing a sequel to The Fountainheadache. These concepts are all focused on giving the client what they want while getting them excited about discovering what they also need.
Two Elexicon projects received awards in the West Michigan Shores chapter of the Society for Technical Communication 2008-09 Effective Communication Competition.
Congratulations to Calvin and John! Elexicon has a long history with the West Michigan STC and we appreciate the recognition from this great organization…
Elexicon is an interactive design and development agency based in Grand Rapids, Michigan...More>
