[Project Complete] New technical consulting and support website - $350

[DarrenB]

(Admin code added by Palmer - 1W753322B)

Note: much of this project description was borrowed from a very well defined project (http://www.designoutpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7816&page=1&pp=30) recently moved to revisions

Basic Goal:

Create a web site that is not cluttered, easy to use, and has a technical edge to it. The primary image should attract a non-techncial business person by presenting a brief glimpse of what we offer. It should educate as well as offer assistance.

Image

The image we are trying to project is one of "let us take your computer stress" It should be light, using a great deal of white space and translucent colors. It should allow navigation to exactly what users want with little effort.
Hence, the desire for some translucent characteristics and white space. Navigational aspects are important as well as noted in the comments below. Furthermore, the site MUST load quickly. Hence no flash.

Company Name : TS Associates

Company Profile : Technical Solutions
Scope of Project : New Website.

Intended Audience : Owners or managers of small to mid sized companies looking for help with technology.

Purpose of Website : To sell products and services, offer educational resources in the form of relevant industry news, white papers, sample policies and procedures, and laymens explanations of technology, etc..

Mood / Tone : Professional/clean/minimalistic. Light/fast/effortless.

Technology : The site will eventually run some scripting of tools for DNS such as record lookups, WHOIS queries, etc.
We will alos have a service request form page that will send an email to an address we specifiy and post to MySQL.

Theme : In terms of theme, we are looking for something clean and sharp - easy to navigate

Color Psychology : Lots of white space. Translucent characteristic. Lighter colors and/or greyish "soft-brushed metal" look like motorola.com and brookstone (links below).

Logo and business card colors are:
Green Pantone: 5477C
Green Process: 38c, 0m, 18y, 56k
Gold Pantone: 139C
Gold Process: 23c, 38m, 98y, 9k

Text Font (non-logo): Helvetica Neue Light
Possible Font Substitutions: Helvetica, Arial


Main Competitors : www.zypes.com, http://www.isoutsource.com, http://www.conjungi.com

Example navigational links:

Home
Services
Administration
Security
Monitoring
Lean Technology
Consulting
Dental and Medical Support
Products
Firewalls
Servers
Anti-Virus
Anti-Spam
About Us
Our Staff
Contact Us
Vision
Customer Portal
Work Request
Status Request

Other functionality desired : Search, and customer login. Both unobtrusively available on most pages. Also dynamic elements such as drop-down links upon rollover as described below.

Navigational comments : We're looking for the top-level links to be dynamic rollovers. We'd like mouse-over dynamic elements but if they slow the site down too much, it's not necessary.

Things we like
http://www.vonage.com
Alot of white space w/ soft lettering
Great mouse over menus
Customer login fits well

http://www.motorola.com
Great mouse over menus
Once you have selected something from top-level bar, the page contains links on left of information within that area.

http://www.sprintpcs.com
Tab format on white back ground is clean
Sub-menus on left side of child pages are well presented

Deliverables :
HTML files and any CSS/graphics/images/buttons & tabs. Please allow for easy update to both navigational bars and content.

I see this ending up as two different templates (one for first page, one for everything else), use one if you feel it does the job. Do it as it works best for your entry.

:eek: Deadline: July 27th - I'd like to have a good idea of the finalists within the first 10 days.

I have attached an EPS of our logo for your use as well as a PDF of my business card design. Feel free to use the logo or just parts of it, perhaps the icon changing on mouse over.

Best of luck and we look forward to working with all of you and seeing your designs over the next two weeks.

[Aliska]

Hello
I will join to your contest during next 2-3 days.

[Aliska]

Hello
An idea from me. Waiting for your comments.

[DarrenB]

Thanks for the quick entry Aliska. I've edited my initial project description to be more in line with my comments here.

Can you remove the news letter subscription and make the login smaller, moving it down toward the bottom of the page? I think we'll forgo the minority report look - please remove the tech look overlay on the top image. Do you have access to any other images? I'd like to try something that is posed as though they looking at the client as if waiting to support them. Just a thought, try what ever else you would like.

Note to all designers: I've done some basic page creation in the past and will be doing updates myself, I would like to ask that what ever you create be very well commented so that I can perform updates to content or menu's down the road.

Thanks again, I'm looking forward to seeing more

[DarrenB]

:confused: Deleted to remove redundancy w/ project description

[dziner]

Hi, here is one from me. I will be happy to make any revisions you would like to see.
Thanks!
Shelly

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/web1.jpg

and the navigation

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/web1_nav.jpg

[DarrenB]

Thanks for the great entry Shelly.

Question for you. Would it be too much scope creep for you to create images to replace the mouse for each of the top level child pages? Initialy I like the mouse for the front page, it's simple and clean.

Also, could you please remove the newsletter subscription and drop the customer login down.

I'd like to add the code found at this link (http://www.trendmicro.com/syndication/housecall/thank_you.asp?button=10) just above the client login.


Thanks,
Darren

[dziner]

Darren,
I will be happy to make the changes and find some more images for the top of the interior pages. Quick question, when you say you want to "add the code" above the login box, do you mean the actual code for the visitor to copy and paste, or do you mean you want a link to the free online antivirus scanner?

Thanks!
Shelly

[DarrenB]

Shelly,
Thanks for the images work. As for the code, if you follow the link, then copy and paste the code into that cell (if you are using tables) it will present a TrendMicro icon and launch code for a child window to open and begin a virus scan of the users PC. Hope that helps.

D.

[Aliska]

Hello
Some changes from me. Waiting fo your comments.

[DarrenB]

Aliska,

Thanks for the 2nd entry. I have to say though that I'm not crazy about the overall design. It feels dark and cluttered to me. Do you have any other concepts you'd like to try?

Thanks,
Darren

[dziner]

Darren,
Below is a possibility for the interior page layout as well as a few pictures for the main links.
Thanks!
Shelly

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/web1_services.jpg

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/web1_portal.jpg

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/web1_about.jpg

[Anne]

Here's a start from me

Anne

[Anne]

or

[DarrenB]

I didn't get an email that you all had posted. I'm going to review these with a couple people and will post again Tuesday afternoon or Wed. morning.

[Aliska]

Hello
Changed version from me. What do you think?

[pod]

Hi
I am prepairing a entry for you I will try to submit tomorow morning.I just want to inform you

Thanks

[pod]

Hi
Here is my design proposal ,
İf you have comments and ideas please let me know

Thanks

[DarrenB]

All,

Thanks for the input. Here's some feedback for you. I won't have Internet acceess until Monday the 24th. I look forward to getting back to you all then.

Shelly: Again, I love the use of white space, font colors, etc. I don't really care for the pictures for security or about us, but we can find the best ones when/if we get to the revisions forum. Is that fair? Feel free to post other ideas if you'd like. I found a stock image of a young woman standing in a server room with two or three others behind her. It may work well for About us.

Anne: I like the use of the tag line, but don't care much for the tabs. They are too over-used on the web. I'd also like to spread out the content to get more white space. I'd also like the colors softened.

Aliska: Thanks for the post, I'm still feeling like it's too dark and cluttered.

Pod: Good use of images, but feels too cluttered. About us would be a nested page. Iknow it's just content and can be edited, but throws off the appearance for this case. Also, what are you proposing for menu drop downs or static links? Can you also change the color switching between the "testimonials" and "About us" (bars also) let try consistency for those. It may also help to reduce the amount of text you have put in. I like the services and products boxes, they fit well. Can you make the green less dark?

[DarrenB]

I've selected Shelly as the winner. Thanks to all for the input.

[dziner]

Thank you :D . Do you have any changes for the home page before I code the html? Also, I know we will still need pictures for some of the pages right?

Shelly

[DarrenB]

Hi Shelly,

Will you write in the search function or will I need to take care of the script?

As for the images, I'm not sure what you are using, but I'd like to try the attached image on the front page. It's an RF from Getty Images that I will purchase if I like the look.

Please let me know what works best for reviewing new photos. I was thinking that before you spend time modifying any stock photos, you might be able to post them on a page where I can review them?

Here are my ideas for each major section:
Services: business people around a computer w/ white background

Products: I'm working on obtaining some gif logo files we can use. We have a few logo's I'd like to have you fade out and place randomly. Can you do that?

About us: Can you do something using a map of washington state? If not the entire state, then the north western section from Tacoma to Bellingham?

Customer Portal: I like the image you used.

Contact us: remove it, it will be under About us

When you deliver the images, can I get any you've created in the EPS format as well as gif/jpeg? I'll use them for making changes later on.

[dziner]

I just wanted you to know that I am working on the revisions and will post them later today and I will also post some photo options that I have for you to look at. Thanks again!
Shelly

[dziner]

I just wanted you to know that I am working on the html. Sorry, I am a little slow when it comes to mouse overs and menus. Should be done shortly!
:)

[dziner]

Hi, sorry it took so long getting this done. But, I do have the home page and for the interior page template I did the customer portal since you were sure about the pic. Question, do you have the logos ready for me on the products page (for the picture right?) Below you will find a few choices for the services section and I have a map of washington state for the about us page already done.
As far as the search goes, it would probably be better for you to set that up, I am not an expert at that.

Let me know if I need to keep searching for pictures for any of the major pages.
What is done can be found here (http://www.yencreative.com/ts/final_ts/index.htm)

and the customer portal link is active.

Thanks!

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/pic1.jpg


http://www.yencreative.com/ts/pic2.jpg

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/pic3.jpg

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/pic4.jpg

http://www.yencreative.com/ts/pic5.jpg

[DarrenB]

Hi Shelly,

I"ve attached the logo's. You can play with them as you see fit. There are some in EPS with various versions, and others with only a single gif.

Were you able to use the image I posted? As I said, I'd like to use it on the front page and will purchase it if you can use it. What do you think about fading it from the left side to accomdate the "inovative technical solutions"?

I'm not crazy about the services images you posted, that orange shirt and tie has to go :eek: and the woman in the first photos needs to see her Dr. She's looking kind of rough. :( . Let's use the mouse image on services.

I'm seeing some odd behavior in internet explorer from the menus when I first open the page. The Home field is too wide and the pop up menus appear translucent. If I refresh it, it appears to clean it up. Looks great in firefox.

[dziner]

I am sorry about the home page pic, for some reason I was thinking that you wanted to keep the mouse on it. I added the picture you posted to the home page as well as the other pictures for the main links. The only one that I am not sure of is the products page. Click here (http://www.yencreative.com/ts/final_ts/index.htm)

[DarrenB]

Hi Shelly,

Any idea on the odd menu behavior in Internet Explorer? It's not very usable with the performance for a first time viewer. I'll also need you to change the copyright to TS Associates - you have an & between TS and Associates now.

I like the pictures, great job. I love the map! I had an associates check out the pages and his first comment about the image on the home page was "I've seen that in a magazine!". Apparently that image has been used a bit. I like it though and it looks good.

On the products image, can you please remove the medallion program icon? I'll use that in the body of the page.

I've attached a few icons I'd llike to add to the image.

Can I ask what you are using to edit the pages? I'm going to purchase an app to do site maintenance with and would probably be most successfull if I use the same program it's written in.

I haven't viewed your source in any detail, will it be pretty easy for me to add menu items? I'm pretty good with VBS and Java when I have code to copy.

[dziner]

I will make the changes today. For software I use fireworks/dreamweaver for the most part. The navigation is done in javascript and should be pretty easy for you to edit. As far as the first time view problem in IE.. I will fix that, it is a relative link in the code right now and I need to make it absolute. I just need your put your URL in instead of just index.htm. Make sense?

Shelly

[DarrenB]

You bet. What would you charge per hour to help out with site updates?

[DarrenB]

Shelly,
How are things going? Do you think we can wrap this up shortly?

Thanks
Darren

[dziner]

I made the last of the changes and if you want to go through everything one more time before I zip up the files that would be great. Before I zip them up I will change the javascript code for the home page (navigation) to read http://www.tsassociates.net/ and this will make the "on" state of the home link show correctly. I think that was all with the addition of the logos to the product page. Let me know of anything I may have missed. I am going to private message you on the other question you asked. =)

Shelly
final run through (http://www.yencreative.com/ts/final_ts/)

[DarrenB]

Hi Shelly, I still need you to fix the copyright from "TS & Associates" to "TS Associates"

Other than that we should be fine. I'm looking forward to seeing the menu system come up cleanly in Internet Explorer.

Great job with the logo's.

Thanks again.

Darren