web design & development proposal_acumin_v1
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Web Design & Development Proposal_AcuminTRANSCRIPT
WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL ACUMIN v0.1
Author: Mark Johnson
New Brand Media owns the copyright for this document and all its contents. This proposal should be considered private and confidential and may not be shared with any third party without the prior written permission of New Brand Media.
24/06/2010
Contents
!! About Us
!! Our Technical Standards
!! Our User-Centred Design Approach
!! UCD Methodology
!! Understand the Target Audience
!! Design the Information Architecture
!! Prototyping & Content Management
!! Software Licensing
!! Team Profiles
!! Deliverables & Cost
About Us
New Brand Media is a digital agency,
set up to make brands online through
the use of strategic design and
development methodologies
Our User-Centred Design approach is the
result of a over a decade of design &
development for some of the world’s
leading brands
We are structured to ensure integrated branding
across the multiple channels that make up
today's landscape
Mobile Web Social Media
About Us
Our Technical Standards
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the governing body that defines best practices for web
development. New Brand Media will work to these ‘web standards’ so that Acumin site can gain
many strategic advantages including:
1) Multi-channel content delivery (Mobile Apps, Social Media, Blogging)
The principle of separating presentation (Design/CSS code) from content (stored in a database
and formatted to XML standards) will provide Acumin with a future proof platform, well
positioned for integration with the imminent mobile applications as well as reducing ongoing
maintenance.
2) Reduce Maintenance Costs
Importantly, the aforementioned coding practices will reduce Acumin's content management
costs by ensuring the web database forms the single content repository or 'digital hub' for real-
time distribution to these channels. This will avoid any effort duplication on their part and will
allow Acumin to not only update their web site in-house but also potentially other platforms such
as mobile apps, simultaneously.
3) Accessibility Improvements
The law enforcing accessible web design came into force on 1st October 1999 and the Code of
Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27th May 2002.
“The Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by
refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.”
For example, if a blind user was unable to apply for a job because the web site was not
accessible to screen readers this is a provision of a service and would be subject to the act.
In reality, the chance of your organization being sued is very slim. Pretty much all websites
have some accessibility issues with many government web sites included! However, a website
in the human resources sector should be sensitive to discrimination and therefore so we would
recommend following web standards in Phase 0.1 to at least lay down the foundations of
accessibility. Accessibility should be seen as a long term ethical stance and we recommend
making your website ‘single A’ compliant as soon as possible after this initial first release.
Our Technical Standards
User-centred design is about understanding your target
audience and designing round their needs and goals.
Placing ‘the user’ at the centre of the design process makes
a web site easy to navigate and pleasure for them to use.
Consequently, high standards of usability ensure your site
delivers on the business objectives.
Our User-Centred Design Approach
RECENT NEW BRAND MEDIA CLIENTS:
UCD Methodology – ‘understand, create, evaluate’
Our methodology is an iterative approach, lean on documentation
and rich in action (prototyping).
RECENT NEW BRAND MEDIA CLIENTS:
UCD Methodology – ‘understand, create, evaluate’
Understanding the Target Audience
The following analysis will be conducted at the very the outset of the project:
Define User Profiles - User Profiling seeks to understand target users and identify their
needs and characteristics.
Establish User Goals – A process of grouping, prioritising and optimising the activities of
users.
Plan User Journeys – User-flow diagrams are developed and optimised around the
established user goals. These ‘user journeys’ are extrapolated to form the primary
information architecture of the site.
Design the Information Architecture
Usable web sites come from a focus on the ‘people‘ who will use the application, over the
technology or corporate structure that produces it. An experienced Information Architect will direct
your site content so that it is:
!! Categorised in a way your target audience understands designed to make to their goals
easy to achieve
!! Consistent, useable and intuitive
!! Optimised for search engine ranking
A sitemap will be produced as a framework for the site content, ready for prototyping.
On the Internet, ‘content is king’. Yet too often, content is not considered early enough in the web
development process in the rush to the visual ‘design’.
Our approach is to engage the content management solution at the earliest stage in order to
‘Prototype’ the information architecture in a ‘real’ web site driven by the database. This means we will
be perfecting the content throughout the entire project build cycle.
A prototyping approach therefore enables:
!! A web-based content repository that is visible and editable by all project stakeholders regardless
of location (Remote client access).
!! A more ‘human-friendly’ method of inputting copy into the database which can be previewed
immediately in a ‘real’ website context as opposed to being in isolated and unconnected Word
documents.
!! Improved usability. Writing site copy with a sense of connectivity to other pages will improve
screen logic and navigation.
!! Iterative content improvements throughout the project timeline.
Prototyping the Information Architecture & Content Management
Prototyping the Information Architecture & Content Management
The Acumin team will be set up with individual user accounts with varying degrees of authorization
to access and edit the content prototype and subsequently, the actual web site.
This will establish an approval workflow for Acumin to manage their site content from administrator
to editor going forward.
Any third party can be given access at Acumin's discretion, be that a PR company or SEO
Copywriter with publishing rights as appropriate. For example, a PR Agent may be permitted to edit
and publish content whereas a SEO Copywriter may only be permitted to add meta-tags and submit
content changes to the main administrator for approval before going live. This allows Acumin to
scale up and down outside support as they choose.
The New Brand Media framework is built on the Open Source Content management System,
WordPress. WordPress is the leading Blogging Platform in the market and being Open Source
there would be no additional licensing costs to Acumin.
The framework we have developed 'on top' of WordPress adds modular functionality
extensions that deliver on a number of typical business needs that we have come across whilst
developing content management systems for clients over the last 10 years.
Below is a snapshot of some of the key refinements we have made that make our system
infinitely more flexible and powerful than your average CMS 'out of the box':
!! Simple Embedding of Video, Flash and Podcasts
!! SEO friendly URL Structure
!! Drag & Drop Page Template building via the CMS (infinite numbers of unique
templates)
!! PHP based for rendering keywords from external sources in-page and indexable by
Google and others.
(SiteFinity license: £612Annual SiteFinity Support: £183 (calculated at 20% of initial license
cost) http://www.sitefinity.com/purchase.aspx
Content Management Software & Licensing
Deliverables & Cost
PROTOTYPE PHASE v0.1 Cost
FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE
Hosting Specification & Acquisition
Set up & Configuration of Apache web hosting environment
Database development
Sub total 750
INTERFACE DESIGN & BRANDING
2 X LOOK & FEEL CONCEPT DESIGNS
FINAL DESIGN Refinement
FRONT-END TEMPLATE & CONTENT FINAL DESIGN
- Home page
- 2nd Level Page Template
- News & Blog Template
IMAGE OPTIMIZATION / PRODUCTION*
Sub total 2600
Deliverables & Cost
FRONT END Time
Template Development
(HTML CSS CODE DEVELOPMENT & CMS Integration)
- Home page
- 2nd Level Page Template
- News & Blog Template
SUB TOTAL 625
BROWSER TESTING
- IE 7 (PC)
- IE 8 (PC)
- Firefox 2+ (PC)
- Safari 2+ (Mac)
- Firefox 2+ (Mac)
SUB TOTAL 562.50
Management Management at 2hr per day 393.75
GRAND TOTAL 4931.25
Our management is structured to ensure integrated
branding across mobile, web & social media
Team Profiles
Web
Jonathan brings over 15 years
experience to his role as Creative
Director at New Brand Media.He has
helped some of the world’s leading
brands engage, interact and build
relationships with their customers
through engaging, user-centered, brand
experiences.
Practiced in managing multidisciplinary teams, strategic direction
and development of an award-winning ‘Customer Experience
Design Team’ he is the author of the New Brand Media’s
user-centred design methodology with an in-depth understanding
of the branding, design and technology challenges facing
enterprise-level clients today.
EXPERTISE: ART DIRECTION, BRANDING,
INTERACTIVE DESIGN, USABILITY.
JONATHAN PORTER Creative Director
Senior Team / Creative Director
Social Media & Search
Trevor is a highly experience online
marketing and e-commerce professional
with over 10 years in the Internet
industry. He specialises in search
engine marketing, social media
and e-commerce.
Trevor believes passionately in the
potential for targeted internet marketing
to transform businesses.
The online opportunity for businesses is huge, but recently survey by Barclay card found that two-thirds of businesses miss out on
sales by not offering their sales on services online.
His approach is to consider all aspects of a company’s online business to grow traffic in a cost effective manner and ensure that this traffic is converted into sales.
As well as working as a consultant, Trevor has hands on
experience of running an e-commerce business through his online retailing business, Hello Baby www.hellobabydirect.co.uk.
His blog on e-commerce and Internet marketing can be found at www.trevorginn.com
Unfortunately, however, his magnum opus The Online Marketing Handbook is still a work in progress.
EXPERTISE: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION,
SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMISATION, E-COMMERCE.
TREVOR GINN Head of Search & Social Media
Senior Team / Head of Social Media & Search
Mobile
Mathias brings over 12 years mobile
experience to New Brand Media.
He provides mobile development
expertise with solutions for:
•! Apple iPhone
•! Rim Blackberry
•! Microsoft Pocket
•! Android
With 3 successful iPhone apps on
iTunes we are helping New Brand Media
clients to deliver their brand in new and
innovative ways.
A successful mobile entrepreneur in his own right, Mathias created the first complex PDA GPRS despatch system in London
in 2002. His ground breaking software on the early XDA’s changed the economics for Radio Taxis, Blueback and others
back then, but today, he prefers his iPhone.
Creating successful mobile applications is just one of many
strings to Mathias’ bow. He also has a golden (and platinum!) past as an Audio engineer in one of Germany’s most established
studio’s, achieving 1 platinum and 4 gold discs with artists such as Brian Eno, Hawkwind and a host of top German stars.
He is available for weddings and karaoke.
EXPERTISE: PLANNING, EXECUTION &
IMPLEMENTATION. STANDARDS & FORMATS, NEW
TECHNOLOGIES, PRODUCT SPECIFICATION &
ROAD MAPS, ENTERPRISE COMPUTING, CLOUD
COMPUTING, SO A IN JAVA AND .NET
MATHIAS DIETRICH Head of Mobile
Senior Team / Head of Mobile
Strategy John holds a BSc in molecular biology from
King’s College, London and a Master’s in
Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal
College of Art (with Imperial College). He has
worked for 10 years in industry including five
as Head of Design for a dot.com technology
company, where he was creative director and
manager of the 12-strong design team,
followed by three years as an independent
design consultant.
He is also a contributing lecturer in industrial
design and project tutor on the MET1 course.
He recently completed a PhD at Cambridge
University, investigating the role of design as a
strategic resource. He also loves
snowboarding and Jelly Babies.
John’s specialities lie within design management and strategy,
matching an organisation’s strategic concerns to design’s
potential contribution, through all areas of an organisation. He is
passionate about design’s value in creating experiences with
clarity and impact, simplifying complex tasks, and making
interactions clear, easy and pleasurable for all:
“Firms that really ‘get’ design make damn sure it is permitted to
reach through and between all areas of their organisation. Not as
easy as it sounds - the connections are fragile and the benefits
hard to quantify. But design integrates and shapes the ways an
organisation is experienced, not only by the customer but by all
stake-holders. This underpins the true meaning of ‘brand’, and
right now this means firms need to engage design specialists that
can join the dots. New Brand Media know their bit and where they
fit, and I’m delighted to be associated with their great work.”
EXPERTISE: DESIGN MANAGEMENT AND
STRATEGY
JOHN STEVENS Head of Strategy
Senior Team / Head of Strategy