Website Redesign
Leading Private Sector Investment Firm

Business Challenge

The website of a leading private sector investment firm contained over 15,000 static pages at the beginning of 2002. Each internal department had the authority to create its own Web content. As each internal department added more pages, the website became an internally focused conglomeration of data.

Related information was spread across different departments. In addition, page-level navigation and layout varied throughout the website. The website was not serving its intended set of constituents--external users who come to the site seeking financing information and project-related data.

Solution

Acumen Solutions redesigned the client’s website to become more user-focused with a consistent navigation and layout. Acumen Solutions implemented best practices in the fields of information architecture, visual design and Web engineering, improved the user experience and helped make the client’s Web development process more efficient.

Rethinking the site’s information architecture, Acumen Solutions aligned content around user-focused goals. Acumen Solutions created new navigation and content areas including:

The content of these new areas had been spread across the site due to internal hierarchies. Acumen Solutions organized this information according to users’ perspectives. Also, existing navigation terms were disconnected from their underlying content. Acumen Solutions aligned navigation terms with correct content groupings, so that users achieved the expected results.

Capturing the desired personality of the client’s organization, Acumen Solutions’ visual designers rethought the layout and the look of the website. The client wanted the new site to depict its organization’s institutional solidity and dedication to sustainable development initiatives. The visual designer wove these imperatives into the reorganized information architecture of the site. The end result is a clean, vibrant look that supports the client’s brand positioning and focuses on user goals.

Once the visual designers captured the look of the site, Web engineers built a prototype of the website. Acumen Solutions developed HTML for the core sections of the redesigned site using cascading style sheets, includes and code components that are reusable across all sections of the site. The client used this prototype as a marketing tool to demonstrate the evolution of the site, while also using the “toolbox” of reusable code as a template to reduce the amount of development time. This “toolbox” provides the client with a technical architecture and foundation for developing and maintaining the site. A style guide, which documents the parameters of colors, fonts, typography and layout that should be used when modifying or adding content to the website, provides additional guidance.

Return on Investment

The client leveraged Acumen Solutions’ expertise in usability and application user experience. By outsourcing the information architecture, visual design and Web engineering processes, the client achieved results in the following two ways:

  1. The client received a quality design solution that will help them confidently drive more traffic to their Web site as a means of promoting their corporate image and marketing their services.
  2. The client centralized the Web design initiatives that its various departments were pursuing. The design will be more consistent and Web development and maintenance costs will be lower. The process of designing new Web content will be streamlined by using the Web engineering toolbox and style guide. As a result, the client will not have to reinvent the wheel with each separate effort.
  3. The client received a site design that will work both with their current static HTML pages, and their ongoing upgrade to a total CMS system.

Technology Used

Acumen Solutions used a variety of software to accomplish the results described above. The deliverables were created using:

The client specifically requested that the prototype and HTML code components be flexible enough to integrate with a number of content management systems that they may use in the future.