A little research helps...

Entereza is a small, but fast growing company. The content and look on their old website was dated due to: growth, increased diversity of services offered, and an adoption of a new branding scheme. Entereza asked for a redesign that would incorporate their new branding scheme and an architecture that would also be flexible enough to allow for future growth, without having to do an overhaul every few years.

I wondered where to start? After doing a content audit on their old site, I realized I would have to recreate the architecture, it was too integrated with the old content. So how could I create a flexible architecture without loosing focus on Entereza's core message and meet an agressive deadline?

To help answer these questions, I did a little research. A simple competetive analysis and brief user research were invaluable. I was able to create realistic personas that helped Entereza understand how their customers would potentially use the website and to identify new content areas.

  • PersonasThe personas and scenarios I created were based on the modeling from research from contextual interviews with potential customers of Entereza.
  • Taxonomy WorksheetA major task in the redesign was to categorize all of Entereza's services. I created this worksheet by gleaning services from marketing materials and numerous white board sessions I held with Entereza.
  • Site ArchitectureThe new architecture is simple and allows room for growth. Content areas were stragically placed based on the goals and needs of the user.
  • Home PageThe website is the result of the research I conducted and agile development. I sketch wireframes on paper before coding, but the final design is the product of time spent iterating with xhtml, css, and Fireworks. The main goal of the home page is to give a preview of available content within the site.