In today’s internet-savvy culture important to have a good website. Not having one could be a detriment to your business if your website is poorly done, or doesn’t exist at all.

There are many different reasons to have a website – the first and most important is that people want to know about you or your business before investing the time to come to your store.  Let’s say, hypothetically, that you own a hardware store.  Before taking the trip to your store (however far from their home that might be), someone would likely come to your website for a number of reasons:

1. To find out if you sell a particular brand of lawnmower
2. To find out if you’ve got a particular lawnmower in stock
3. To get directions or hours of operation
4. To get your phone number to call and ask you to hold their new lawnmower

Let’s also say that you hypothetically do have a website.  Do you have all of those answers on your site?  Are they easy to find?  Can people easily find your contact information or search your site?   Take a look at your site from the customer’s perspective for a moment – would you be able to find the information you need without getting frustrated?

If the answer is no, then your site could use some improvements.  If you think the answer is yes, your site could probably benefit from the advice of an expert designer.

Being Objective

One of the hardest things to do is be objective about your own website. Even more so if it’s something you’ve built yourself.  It’s hard to see the faults of your own site because you’re used to using it. You may have even designed it. That’s where the help of an expert can come in handy. A trained web designer can spot design problems quickly and suggest fixes that will allow your customers to find information easier. One of the more important things in website design is referred to usability testing, which hardly gets done because a) it’s a pain to do and b) it can be expensive.  However, it’s extremely important.  How it works is rather simple – you get a handful of people completely unrelated to you or your website, tell them absolutely nothing about your website, and give them tasks to do on the site (search for something, buy something, etc), and document how quickly they can accomplish the tasks and if they get stuck or frustrated on a task.  If they can’t figure out how to complete the tasks you’d like users to complete – buying a product, finding your store hours, etc. -, your site needs some improvements.

Why Does It Matter?

So, why is this all important?  If someone can’t get around your website or find the information they’re looking for, they’re extremely unlikely to stick around long enough to find out about you, and even more unlikely to travel to your store to give to purchase something. You want to make things as easy as possible for the potential customer – the easier it is for them to find information, the more likely it is that they will purchase something from you.

Summation

Having a website is a responsibility.  You’re expected to keep it up to date, make it usable, and represent your business in a proper manner. This can be a daunting task for a small business owner (or even larger businesses!) and is where the services of an expert can help. Having a well designed, easy to use website that clearly conveys the message of your business  and displays the information people are trying to get about your business can put you leaps and bounds ahead of your competitors.

What do you think of our new site?

This project represented a huge undertaking of both redesign, and re-coding of their site.  We started over, from the ground up, and re-did everything.

This new site is built more aesthetically pleasing, and is much more user-friendly, focusing more on what’s important – the cars.  The work Automotive Perfection does is top-notch, and they wanted a website redesign to represent that top-notch clientele.

This change in their business model also allowed us to completely redesign their website, removing the element of paying to download games locally to a PC. Their new business model allowed us to simply link to the Apple iTunes App Store, and let the purchasing happen there.

The client requested this new site to be simplistic, web 2.0, and one single page.  The result was a web 2.0 feel, utilizing many newer technologies (including CSS3 and jQuery), and has the entire site’s content on one page, utilizing jQuery to scroll up and down the page in a smooth, appealing manner.

The new site incorporates a contact us form directly on their homepage, a live Twitter feed, links to the iTunes store, a scrolling iPhone image rotater containing images from the game, a CSS3 menu including dynamic shadows for the menu items, rotating client testimonials, and Twitter & Facebook links.

Our work on this project included archiving the existing website, mocking up a few variations of the new design, incorporating client feedback, and eventually building the website from our mockup.  We provide ongoing maintenance to the site, as well.

Without getting too much detail, we were able to come up with a design concept, based solely on what we knew about Transparent Financial.  The artistic direction we took was entirely our own, from the layout, to the color scheme.  Only the content was provided to us, via the previous website.

We mocked up the site, and the clients were immediately in love.  Once we turned it into a website, we added some more features to it, and expanded it a bit to where it is now.  The site launched December 7th, 2009.

]]> http://www.mjjdesigns.net/transparent-financial/feed/ 0 http://www.mjjdesigns.net/presto-iphone-application/ http://www.mjjdesigns.net/presto-iphone-application/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:00:44 +0000 Mike http://www.mjjdesigns.net?p=312 Presto is an iPhone application that allows the user to easily send updated contact information to anyone (or everyone) in their address book, instantly. It can also be used to send someone else’s contact information, instantly, wirelessly. No more writing down your phone number, and handing it to someone new you meet.  Simply use Presto, and they’ll have your entire contact information instantly.

MJJ Designs was contracted not only to build the website for Presto, but also to design the graphics used in the application itself (examples of the app icon, an app page and the site itself can be seen below).  The company wanted the site to look similar to an iPhone, and to utilize a similar functionality. Visitors to the site can click on any of the highlighted icons to visit the sections of the website, just as they would touch an iPhone icon to use the app.

We created an iPhone image in Photoshop, added some clickable icons to emulate the iPhone functionality, and an AJAX window popup to show the content of each section.  It’s a straightforward design with a simple concept – one that the company has been thrilled with.

His concept for the site is fairly simple – users register, select if they’re a director or screenwriter, and they get automatically listed on the site, under their respective category.

We developed the site utilizing PHP, and MySQL.  The backend was written as a registration and profile system, where users can sign up, and modify their profile at any time.

When it came time to decide how to allow people to contact members of DirectItAll, we thought about personal privacy first, and technology secondly.  Initially, the owner wanted to simply display e-mail addresses on the site.  When we explained the spam implications of doing that, we came up with a more secure idea.  When a user clicks “Contact this Director” or “Contact this Screenwriter”, a form loads, with the destination person’s e-mail address hidden in a form variable that is virtually unspammable. This allows users to contact each other, securely.

In a future version, the owner has cited that he’d like to make an online messaging system available, similar to Facebook’s messaging system.  We’ve already begun working on this part of phase two.

Their previous website was built in the late ’90s, and drastically outdated.  They contracted us to rebuild their site, refresh their look, and build new features in, that the previously wanted but didn’t have.

We began with an overhaul of the aesthetics of the site, keeping their existing logo intact, to maintain their brand.  When it came time to write the code for the site, we built in some simple ad rotation on the front page (which cycles through their available services, two at a time), and a “coupons” section, which displays the current month’s coupons.  The owner of the store has the ability to easily update those coupons, which automatically update month to month, on the website itself.

The E-Commerce package is very similar to our Super Website package, but features functionality built specifically for selling products online, including:

• Shopping Cart functionality – allow visitors to add products to their shopping cart
• Member registration – let your visitors sign up for an account and store their billing and shipping details securely to make checkout faster for repeat purchases.
• Sale items – visitors are more likely to purchase items from your website if they’re on sale.  The sale functionality allows you to specify items, start dates, end dates, discount prices or discount percentages.
• SSL security – protects your shoppers and yourself from identity theft.
• Wish lists – let your visitors make wish lists for friends and family to purchase from.
• Payment Processing – if you don’t want to hand process credit cards in store, we can work with your merchant account provider to automate the purchase process from your website, including auto-notification to you and your customer once their payment has been approved.
• Product reviews – shoppers are 47% more likely to purchase an item if it has positive reviews (based on market research.)  Having product reviews on your website allows people who’ve purchased the item from you to rate and review it.
• Best sellers – we can configure a portion of your site to show, and automatically update, your best selling items.

Your store can be accessed via your own Administration panel, without having to learn any coding.  We will spend as long as it takes with you, to teach you how to use your administration panel. From inputting items into your store, to completing orders, to providing tracking information once your product has been shipped.

This package is completely customizable to your needs, and  includes the most extras of any of our Website packages. In addition to your customized e-commerce website you’ll receive in-depth Statistics Tracking, E-Mail Marketing Opt-In Lists, and Logo Design.

NOTE: We STRONGLY recommend purchasing an SSL Certificate when running an E-Commerce Website. It protects your customers’ billing and personal information as well as enhances your reputation as a trustworthy online retailer.  We provide the SSL certificate services for $199, which is not included in the price of designing your site.

Having 100% control over your website allows you to make changes without employing anyone to do so on your behalf, saving you money.  The administration panel can be as simple or as customized as you’d like it to be.  What is important is that you’re familiar with how it works, what it does, and how to add/edit/update the content on your website’s pages without our help.  We’ll ensure that you’re 100% comfortable with how things work before we sign off on handing control of your site over to you.

This package also includes custom graphics, Logo Design and detailed Statistics Tracking.

Having a custom logo can help your business’ identity become known; having a great custom logo can help your business be remembered.  We can provide that identity to your business.

All graphic design work is done in Adobe Photoshop and saved as .PSD files.  We will gladly provide those .PSD files to you upon the completion of your project, along with any documentation pertaining to the renewal of your services, instructions on how to use your administration panel, and details on how your site is built and works.