A company’s website is a smorgasbord of functions, utilities and advertising encapsulated in a single experience controlled by the user. In plain english, a website is supposed to do a little bit of everything for anyone and everyone. (I mean, just think about the fact that you are currently reading a blog about a custom glass manufacturing company on the website of an advertising agency. Weird.)
So, when you are on the path to redesign your website, where do you start? Utility? Navigation? Branding? Tru Vue decided to start with Plan B. Our team, in collaboration with Tru Vue, developed a five-phase plan that would create a roadmap for the website redesign and ensure we can capture that smorgasbord into one seamless package.
First phase, Discover.
The Discovery phase prioritizes end goals and analytics. We met with the Tru Vue team and learned where the current site succeeded, where the current site failed, and what they wanted from their redesigned site.
Next phase, Define.
After discovering what needs to be accomplished, Plan B defines how we will accomplish it. We built out wire frames, mapped out our analytic tracking tools and identified the SEO and keyword phrases that would allow the most traffic to the site.
Finally the fun part, Design.
Once the scope of work is detailed, we can really get under the hood and start overhauling the website. For Tru Vue, that meant creating comprehensive, organized paths that clearly identify what a user wants to find, and the quickest way to find it. For example, the previous Tru Vue ‘Find a Distributor’ page did not offer a seamless purchasing experience, limiting engagement and harming brand identity. Our team organized the distributor page with clear formatting and corresponding contact buttons and links for each distributor, improving the overall look, feel and function of the page.
That gets us to, Develop.
With the design work finished, now we have to develop. Our team programmed the back end of the site, which included building out the pages, filling in the content and setting up the analytic trackers.
Finally, Deploy.
And at long last, as Bill O’Reilly famously said, “We do it live!” We pushed the site out and monitored it over the coming weeks to ensure there were no hiccups.
The end result, well you can see it for yourself here. The new website is easier to use, simpler to navigate and reaches new markets. And as Tru Vue continues to evolve their site, we are excited to build future additions.
