RSSMay 2nd, 2007
Project83.com Version 2
A couple of weeks ago, we quietly launched Project83’s first full-scale redesign. It’s something that our team worked really hard on, and I could not be more pleased at how it turned out.
One of the most important principles in redesigning your own site is not to get carried away. In fact, I put myself through our very own development process in order to stay on track and get the final result. All in all, it took a little less than three months from start to finish.
Before
After
As a company, we preach usable site structure, accessible code and fantastic design. The new site was an opportunity to showcases each of these three things in our own way.
1. Usable site structure
Hopefully this speaks for itself. We wrote ALL-NEW site content, created some new pages and got rid of some things. If it was not focused on the main call to action, which is winning our ideal clients, we got rid of it. All of the content is aimed at that target audience.
One of my favorite parts in each section is the “Q & A”. I feel like each page has practical answers to questions we actually get all the time. Also, featuring resources from the showcase and blog at the bottom is a nice addition that does not get in the way.
Lastly, I felt that we needed to make much better use of the sidebar. It now has a sub-nav (when applicable), client testimonial and project interview download. On the home page, it’s completely different, and I like how it works. Pages like the showcase don’t have a sidebar simply because there’s no need for it. We just want to give users what they came to that page to see, which is our work.
2. Accessible code
All of us in the web development community are learning new things every day. It’s really exciting. One can imagine all the great things we learned over the past year, and we put them to work by cleaning up the code a bit.
We also had a little fun with this layout. The CSS junkie in me decided to do a 100% elastic layout for the site. The new design has rounded corners everywhere, so it was a great challenge. Go ahead and enlarge the text size in your browser. The layout expands and contracts beautifully.
Whether users are accessing our site content using Internet Explorer (YUK!), a mobile phone, or a piece of paper printed from the site, we have the bases covered. Without getting too geeky, that’s what gets me excited about the web! It may be complicated on the surface, but technology gives us the ability to simplify everything for the end user.
3. Fantastic Design
I am technically not tooting my own horn here, because our designer Jared is responsible for most of the aesthetics produced by Project83. He does great, challenging work in my opinion. A great deal of time and effort was put into designing all the “little things” for version 2.
The previous site was mostly finished once we designed the home page. With the new site, each page got a great deal of thought and careful consideration so we could highlight important content and make it easy to scan. I think it worked pretty well, and we will continue improving on it over time.
Feedback and comments regarding the new design are always welcome, we hope you enjoy it.
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