May 12th, 2011
Right before I launched LifeSport Chiropractic’s new website I took a few screenshots of their old website for comparison. The ultimate goal when I design any site is to make the site’s information well organized, concise and easy to find. After looking at the two sites side by side a noticeable difference can be seen.
The biggest challenge I faced with the LifeSport Chiropractic site was reducing the amount of text used throughout the site. When a user navigates to a new website, the site must make an immediate impact and make it’s purpose clearly known. Visitors to websites don’t read content, they scan it. As a result, all of the information needs to be presented in an easily scannable form.
My strategy for this site was to lay out the majority of the content in a two and three column format. For each section of information I used a headline, some sort of image or graphic, a brief amount of text and finally a call to action button. This format streamlines the users focus in a logical way. With only a brief amount of time scanning the site, the user knows exactly what the site is about and where to find the needed information.
The home page is the best example of the easily scannable user interface for LifeSport Chiropractic. However, each page utilizes the exact same strategy of focusing the user on what is important by maximizing white space and minimizing unnecessary clutter. In the left hand column there is a comparison of the contact page of both the old site and the new site. There was not nearly the amount of information to organize on this page as there was on other pages. However, I tried to include the necessary information to contact and interact with Lifesport in a structured fashion. The text introduces the social media icons. The physical address leads to the map, which leads to a call to action button that directs the user to directions from Google Maps. Finally, there is a simple contact form highlighted by the call to action button to submit the form.
The goal of any website is to effectively communicate ideas from one party to another. For LifeSport Chiropractic’s site I tried to make things as simple and user friendly as possible. The less the user has to think and the simpler the interface is, the more effective the site will be. I hope that the strategy that I used for this site and will continue to use for others will be extremely effective in reaching the intended audience.
April 22nd, 2011
This week I launched my latest creation for a local chiropractor, LifeSport Chiropractic. My goals for this site expanded well beyond just displaying LifeSport’s services. The core of this new site is the resources that will be offered to existing and potential customers. In the coming weeks and months, LifeSport will be continually adding blog posts, home exercises and videos that will help injured athletes better understand their injuries and how to treat them. As a result of offering free resources to the community, LifeSport will be developing a relationship with customers that they have never met before.
My vision for LifeSport Chiropratic’s new site is an online resource overflowing with information that will be helpful to the athletic community, not just locally but around the world. As a result of this information, it is my hope that an online community would form within the blog comments as well as the discussion forums that will enable athletes to help each other. As a result of this abundance of information, a sense of trust will develop that will make it easier for potential customers to seek out chiropractic, sports medicine and muscle restoration services from the company.
I look forward to watching LifeSport’s online community and business develop together.
November 15th, 2010
I am proud to announce the launch of my latest site, this time for Vanessa Gerhards. Vanessa is a dance instructor and a culinary artist, she wanted a website that clearly reflected those two aspects. I think her new website is a great representation of her two tremendous talents.
When I began brain storming ideas for her site I wanted to keep her message incredibly simple. After a brief visit to her site, I want the viewer to immediately know who she is and what she does. The best way to do this is with one image and one word. These two items send a stronger message than a whole page of text ever could.
Vanessa looks stunning in her bright pink dress and gives a sense of movement and grace with her dance pose. She also looks great in her traditional German outfit in the next slide. I used a simple jQuery plugin for the slide effect. This allowed me to place all the attention on one item at a time. Each image is clickable and leads to more information about Vanessa’s highlighted talent. I used a shadow effect below the image to to create a little depth against the background. This worked perfectly with the photos that were taken outside in the sun.
The bottom of the home page displays her twitter posts, dance schedule link, Nessi’s Kitchen episodes link and her latest blog posts. I thought the blue of the two icons in the middle nicely compliment the pink of her dress and logo above.
Just like Will Kelsay’s site, I built every page with custom fields that allow Vanessa to update her site without having to know any code while at the same time keeping the flow of a good design built with valid XHTML.
After completing the site and taking a step back, I think I accomplished my goals of creating a simple, easy to use site that sends a clear and concise message. What do you think? What do you like or dislike about the site? What would you have done differently?
Take a look at Vanessa’s new site.
