Five for Friday: 1.2.2009
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and wrap up to 2008. mine was pretty enjoyable, although hectic with two young girls in the house and traveling to visit family. 2008 was a busy year for me, so I thought I’d kick off the new year’s Five for Friday series with five projects I wrapped up over the last quarter of 2008. These are all web sites I completed at the day job as lead (meaning sole) web designer and developer atTCS Software. All sites are built using ourRuby-On-Rails-driven WebSuite2 CMS.
National Career Development Association (NCDA)
Launched in early December, the NCDA site redesign was a major challenge and undertaking. Not only did we need to work with the client in reworking the content structure, but this is the first site using the Products Module, WebSuite2’s custom shopping cart. The early feedback from members indicates that the relauch exceeded expectations.
National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators (NADDI)
The NADDI redesign was an interesting project. The previous version of the site was fairly dark in appearance and mood, and the navigation structure was rather difficult to sort through. We worked with the client to steamline their content structure and made the site warmer in feel. The home page also better organizes their important content without seeming cluttered.
Ohio Automobile Dealers Association
TCS Software was contracted by OADA to redesign their web site to be more engaging, visually more appealing, and easier to use. Along with a complete design makeover, the backend improvements to this site is what really makes it zing, especially the member management features.
Payments Central
A slight redesign of a current client, the Payments Central web site doesn’t seem much different from the version that ran on our previous CMS. The real difference is on the back end. The CSS structure is significantly cleaner than the previous version, which was about three years old. There are also additional features that came along with the new CMS, including a true sitewide search and better member login and management features. This is also the second site to use our new Prodcuts Module. On the visual side, the home page is better organized and uses the space much better than the previous version.
Association for Financial Technology
A complete overhaul of their previous site, AFT jumped to TCS Software to have a true CMS system for their site content. Not only is the site appearance a vast improvement over its predecessor, but the interactivity greatly enhances the site’s usability and value.
This is a small sampling of the work I’ve been doing at TCS Software this past year. Overall, I’ve been pleased with the work our team has produced, and the vast majority of our clients are great to work with. You can see more of my work at TCS Software at TCS Labs in the upper right rotating portfolio. All but three or four of those sites were designed and built by me. This year, I also plan to post some write-ups of the creative process on some of those projects as well as some new ones that are currently in the works.