website design

Congratulations to Monroe County Water Authority for winning the Government / Community category of the 2013 RBJ Best of the Web competition. Working for the Authority's communications firm Metrix Marketing, we provided user interface design while ITX handled the programming. Our creative team led by Senior Designer Jim Mattiucci enjoyed tackling the website design challenge.

The site is content-rich, notably in the area of customer education. Featured content also includes the "Kids Water Fun" section.

Our thanks go out to John Riley, Metrix Marketing's CEO and Creative Director, for including us on the team. Congratulations!

Podcast File: 

Episode4_WebProcess_Part3.mp3

In today's Marcom Talk installment, we conclude our overview of the process utilized when creating websites for our clients. Our process is based on the five planes of user experience, as introduced by Jesse James Garrett, author of "The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond" (click for book listing on Amazon.com). This is the third and final part of our three-part episode, in which we review the final phase of our web development process. In this part we also discuss what happens when we deliver the final website to the client. In parts one and two we provided some background and discussed the first four phases. We hope you found this episode informative and that you've come away with useful ideas for your next website project.

There are plenty of ways to listen to Marcom Talk; you can subscribe to the podcast through the Apple iTunes Store and listen on your desktop or mobile device; you can download the MP3s directly from our blog; for the RSS-inclined, you can subscribe to our podcast feed.

What’s been on your marketing mind lately? What burning questions from your corner of the marcom universe are in need of answers? Let us know! We’d love to help by offering some of our thoughts in future episodes of Marcom Talk. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below.

Podcast File: 

Episode4_WebProcess_Part2.mp3

In today's installment of Marcom Talk, we continue our overview of the process utilized when creating websites for our clients. Our process is based on the five planes of user experience, as introduced by Jesse James Garrett, author of "The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond" (click for book listing on Amazon.com). This is part two of a three-part episode, in which we review the third and fourth phases of our web design and development process. In part one we provided some background and discussed the first two phases. Stay tuned next week for our third and final part.

There are plenty of ways to listen to Marcom Talk; you can subscribe to the podcast through the Apple iTunes Store and listen on your desktop or mobile device; you can download the MP3s directly from our blog; for the RSS-inclined, you can subscribe to our podcast feed.

What’s been on your marketing mind lately? What burning questions from your corner of the marcom universe are in need of answers? Let us know! We’d love to help by offering some of our thoughts in future episodes of Marcom Talk. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below.

Podcast File: 

Episode4_WebProcess_Part1.mp3

For today's episode of Marcom Talk, the Bob Wright Creative web design and programming team provides an overview of the process we utilize when creating websites for our clients. Our process is based on the five planes of user experience, as introduced by Jesse James Garrett, author of "The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond" (click for book listing on Amazon.com). This is part one of a three-part episode. In part one we provide some background and discuss the first two stages of our process. Stay tuned for future parts.

There are plenty of ways to listen to Marcom Talk; you can subscribe to the podcast through the Apple iTunes Store and listen on your desktop or mobile device; you can download the MP3s directly from our blog; for the RSS-inclined, you can subscribe to our podcast feed.

What’s been on your marketing mind lately? What burning questions from your corner of the marcom universe are in need of answers? Let us know! We’d love to help by offering some of our thoughts in future episodes of Marcom Talk. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below.

When the organizers of Jazz for Food came to Bob Wright Creative in need of website design and programming for this year’s event, the results were positive yet unexpected.

Based in Rochester, New York, Jazz for Food’s purpose is three-fold as it raises money to: provide financial assistance and appropriate resources to the needy affected by the struggling economy; help elderly individuals in need of community support; provide scholarship money to inner city youth for music lessons.

Historically, Jazz for Food has been synonymous with a concert to raise charitable funds for its beneficiaries, which include Foodlink, Lifespan and the South West Area Neighborhood Association (S.W.A.N.).

As successful as this concert-based approach has been, we recognized the strength in Jazz for Food as an organization. We therefore advocated for a new, unexpected approach that promotes not just a singular Jazz concert, but that communicates the strength and longevity of Jazz for Food as an established entity. So, by embracing their group strength in the new website, Jazz for Food now clearly presents itself as a charitable organization that delivers tangible benefits to beneficiaries and sponsors through the curation of distinctive live music experiences.

By introducing expanded content about Jazz for Food, its events, and benefits of sponsorship, website visitors gain a view to an organization that is established and committed to delivering on its mission. Because their new website is built on the Drupal content management system, Jazz for Food has the ability to easily add more events and keep things fresh with timely information.

Even though the site launched just a few days ago, JazzForFood.com has already received considerable positive feedback. This feedback affirms that Jazz for Food has indeed revitalized itself and is a noteworthy player (no pun intended), not only to its beneficiaries, but also to sponsors who diligently research, consider and activate charitable partnerships.

We wish our friends at Jazz for Food all the best as they continue to help those in need by building their organization and portfolio of events.

Click here to visit the Jazz for Food website.

When the time came for CGR to produce web-based Community Indicator Projects, the long-established research organization partnered with Bob Wright Creative to help develop and continuously enhance these powerful web-based tools.

Some Background on CGR

The Center for Governmental Research (CGR) is a municipal research organization founded by George Eastman in 1915 to serve as an independent, non-partisan agency for keeping citizens informed. CGR serves government, nonprofits and business leaders by providing data-driven research and analysis that affects the quality of life in communities both inside and outside New York State.

What is a Community Profile?

A Community Indicator Project, or Community Profile, assesses a range of community issues over time. Comparative performance data is generated on a number of topics, such as economics, education, and health. This data empowers leaders and residents to assess indicators in comparison to other communities, as well as the state and the nation.

Web-based community profiles (link takes you to CGR website) have become essential tools for starting strategic discussion about strengths, challenges and opportunities that affect an entire population. CGR has been in partnership with Bob Wright Creative since 2009 to help develop web-based Community Profiles, and to also help enhance the product at each iteration.

A Web-Based Community Profile for Cayuga and Seneca Counties

To produce the second-generation Cayuga and Seneca Counties Community Profile (click link to open site in new window), CGR specified a website to provide analysis, data and interactive charting capabilities for 70 indicators of community vitality. Comparative data for 4 similar counties, along with the state and the nation, cover topics such as demographics, economy and education.

The website, along with its lead sponsors the United Ways of Cayuga and Seneca Counties, provides leaders with a powerful means for assessing and understanding their communities.

A Solution that Benefits Users of Information and Providers of Information Alike

Bob Wright Creative was again brought in to support the creation of this resource. User interface design and website programming enhancements were provided  to maintain alignment with the evolving nature of the data, as well as the evolving needs of the user.

The website’s user interface design delivers improvements to usability and searchability based on user feedback. As for the back-end, developing a Drupal-based content management system delivered a number of benefits to CGR and its sponsors. These benefits include:

• Enhanced content management capability, administrative control and site security
• Greater flexibility of data presentation through the design and development of dynamic charting capabilities
• Easier inclusion of social media functionality
• Modular code resulting in cost-effective same-site scalability, as well as cost-effective replication for future Community Profile websites
• More efficient and cost-effective enhancements of product features and functionality going forward

With essential information that is always up to date and easily accessed from one central location, service organizations can more easily decide which areas need the most attention. These decisions become actionable by developing approaches to solving issues in a data-driven, quantitative way.

A Platform for Growth

CGR and its sponsors provide community profiles to the benefit of the organizations and populations they serve. Bob Wright Creative’s ongoing role involves user experience enhancement and provision of technology platforms that deliver efficient scalability, ongoing improvement and cost-effective replication. We’re happy to be part of an ongoing website initiative that is helping many, and that is a viable platform for future growth.

Click here to visit Cayuga and Seneca Counties Community Profile.

Happy New Year! I just finished reading a recent Inc.com article entitled "Redesigning Your Website in 2012? Ask These 3 Questions First". Author Amy Buckner Chowdhry did a nice job of covering the key big-picture topics to be covered when considering a website redesign. I encourage you to read all three topics, but one that resonated loudly for me is the second one: "What do your website visitors look for?" (sic)

This topic reinforces the importance of understanding the tasks visitors want to accomplish when they visit a website. To go a level deeper, these tasks are informed by the questions visitors ask when considering a purchase. Further, each stage of a visitor's purchasing decision process will involve a unique set of questions. So, websites should keep the entire buying decision process in mind, and assign content that is tailored to answer questions at each stage. As a website owner, being aware of visitors' stage-specific questions opens up an opportunity to create and publish content that provides relevant answers.

When your website redesign is focused on the questions your visitors are asking, then it's focused on task completion, and therefore, what your visitors are looking for. With this level of focus, you are one step closer to a successful website redesign.

Thanks to author Amy Buckner Chowdhry. You can read her article on Inc.com.