Next Generation Website

What are we talking about? | Goals | Current Website | Flaws | What we need | New Proposal | Comparison | Why change? | Timeline

What is the Goal of Our Website? Increase brand/product recognition and to increase bottom-line profits. Act as a the “Hub” for all the resources we provide for our sales team, partners and distributers. Inform customers and affiliates about the latest products, developments and technology we provide. Instill a sense of reassurance to customers and affiliates that says “We are professional, high quality product manufacturers.” Provide support for current customers with purchased products.

Does the Current Website Fit Our Goals? Although our current website does provide plenty of information and product details, it isn’t fashioned towards the current web trend and the information is hard to digest. Lacks modern web styles Website quality doesn’t match the quality of products Users might not feel reassured by our “image” thus doubting the company and products Verbiage is lengthy and cater towards only a small audience. Information is scattered throughout the site Support for sales team, partners and distributers are almost non-existent

What Needs to Change? To stay on the competitive edge, potentially expand and increase profitability, there are certain steps that need to be taken to achieve these goals. Professionalize our image to be up to par with our products Cater towards a wider demographic through our verbiage and image Choose what the website’s main purpose is. Right now the site is more of an informational resource site than a sales generating site Organize products and information on a more “need-to-know” basis. Let the users choose what they want to see Purchasing the product should be the easiest and most convenient thing for a user to do. Always obvious and 1-click away Provide sales and other partners with the tools to be successful and help boost sales

Our Current Site Top navigation links are weak, online store isn’t emphasized, search is unconventional and the newsletter feels like it has just as much importance as the rest of the links. Right section usually reserved for ads. Information looks (style wise) outdated and color theme draws attention away from the important areas of the website. New products are not displayed and emphasized as much as it should. Very low contrast header for this section and requires users to scroll through to see all the products. Frustration and information overload can potentially lose us a customer. Product menu verbiage needs to cater towards people familiar and unfamiliar with industry products. Categories can be combined and user needs to be able to preview all products without clicking. Depending on where you click, you can reach dead-ends. No contrast

Proposed Site

Main interaction is here, all the users needs can be satisfied with this obvious navigation. Search is conventional and convenient and users can see how many items are in their cart. If there is nothing, it reminds users that they can shop from our site. Main banner to showcase anything we want to feature (products, information, etc.) Allows users to instantly dive into our website and gives them previews of what we do. Banner will rotate every so often or can be user controlled. Information about the company and other information allowing users to interact with us i.e. newsletter. Does not take away from the attention of the products Sections to highlight our new products and technologies in development. Has emphasis but doesn’t take attention away from main message.

Proposed Site What’s the Big Deal? Besides the facelift, our site will appear more “shop” friendly. There is still just information there but it will revealed in a way users can digest better. Between the old and the new site, the sections remain mainly the same but when you look at the new one, you will feel more room to breath.

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product This section will give an example of how a user would look for a product on the site (through drop-down menu)

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product User rolls over “Products” and menu will drop down listing our current menu in a condensed 10 category menu. Users can click on the category to go to the category overview page or roll over to see subcategory/product list.

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product User can click on the category which will take them to the category overview page. Depending on the category, when users roll over a category it will either display the products for that category or the subcategories. This allows users to quickly scan through and see what subcategories/products are in each category without having to click. In this case, RAID Towers and Racks doesn’t have a subcategory so products show up.

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product Suppose a user clicks on RAID Towers and Racks category (not the products), the user will see an overview of the category along with either products or subcategory. In this case, it’s the products. Users can easily scroll through the products for a quick preview, see a comparison chart, see the accessories for this general category ($) and only view products that have features they’re looking for through the filter at the top.

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product The user skips the category page and directly selects the product.

User Interface Flow – Looking for a Product On the product page the user can see a main picture of the product and is again reminded that they can buy it by choosing the model type and quantity. The product page will default to the overview page, allowing users to pick and choose what information they want to see. Depending on the product, the menu might be different. Some products will have additional pictures or tutorials and some will have other sections. Again, the user can choose what they want.

Project Timeline If going through with this project, a very aggressive timeline could be something like this if everything goes smooth. FebruaryMarchApril Organizing, Planning and Logistics Web Flow and Database Structure Front-end Programming and Imagery Database Text / Image Revisions