joomla website design

Request Website Development Introduction: We are a services organization company looking to sell to small and medium businesses. A key communication and marketing tool will be our public website. We will be going live with the first iteration of our new site by the end of August. The overall look-feel has already been created. And the site structure, with main content elements, has been scoped out. We have a mock-up of the rough layout of various types of pages. We are currently working on the content details. We are seeking a firm or individual to provide us with web design / development services, starting on or about August 4, 2008, completion on or about Aug 18. In addition to the overview information below, we have attached representative page layout and site structure documents. The selected developer will be provided with versions that contain actual branding, product naming, plus raw images and graphics. We ask that you respond with a proposal by end of day Wednesday, July 30, 2008. A selection will be made by Friday, August 1, 2008. Objectives / Purpose Sales site which will address needs and communicate solutions & advantages of our services to meet those needs Customer portal: Support for existing customers to aid in administration as well as provide information to help them improve effectiveness and efficiencies in their businesses. Support brand awareness Target audiences Prospective customers – researching options, looking to learn / educate selves, looking to determine supplier & offer options Current customers – wanting access to web portal to administer needs, wanting tech or account or general information & support, users needing support Administrators – to manage Customer access to the portal. Our Marketing Approach From a design perspective, design should account for future site needs. Functionality by phase including future phases is indicated below. Keep it clean, uncluttered and simple, yet professional & established (generic site map and layout templates attached) Easy to understand for non-techie business owners Very customer centric in how it looks and communicates (i.e. it’s about their situation and how we can improve their situation and/ or solve their problems) Less about what we are selling than what they need or might consider buying Start high level (more concept, less detail); then drill down to detail Easy to scan, strong visuals, concise explanations Intuitive navigation, with cross linking to allow different avenues to get at info. Make it easy to get in touch re questions, sales, service Contact info everywhere Easy navigation which utilizes best practices in usability consistent navigation and look/feel Functionality Phase 1 Brochure-ware (Static site) Include a Flash video which exists already, when the user requests it, it will launch a new window to run the Flash. There is a launch Flash File and it will call other files as the view navigates through the demo. Site search functionality Customer portal with security (pswd. & SSL protected). Users will authenticate to a local MySQL 4 database. When a customer logs in they will only be given active options for the ones they have subscribed to (as per the database). When we log in (admin account), we will be given the ability to add customers, change user id’s and passwords, and change the services that a customer can access. CMS (using joomla-1.0.12-36) which has the capability to add / modify / remove: pages (based on 14 page templates – see “Generic Website Page [login to view URL]”) Navigation bars & bar names. Nav bars automatically populated as we add/remove pages or manually overridden. Ability to change text, images, images on buttons (we can embed words in images) Links Images Written content Site map Search box Forms ( i.e. e-mail form requesting sales information) Common SEO fields (such as Meta Tags) Cookie to track users – for Google analytics Phase 2 Live Chat for customer support Discussion forums Phase 3 Other video to animate marketing communications Sector-specific areas Single Sign-on Tone Professional yet friendly Knowledgeable yet focused and to the point Proof points from customers that ( quotes, case studies) Responsive, sense of urgency Technical Environment: The site will be hosted on a shared linix apache server with the following capabilities. joomla-1.0.12-36 is installed on the server. Current Server Side Includes FrontPage Support CGI-BIN PHP 5 Perl 5 MySQL 4 Python Fast CGI Tomacat-JSP & java Servlets Modeperl for Apache Response should indicate technologies being proposed. Prospective web development supplier must have expertise in: Usability SEO CMS Precise execution of design Looking for supplier who has training, certifications. Want to see relevant portfolio samples, making clear the contribution/work of the developer. Site Structure: See site map for representative structure, but this must be managed via CMS, not fixed. Fees: Please include schedule of fees Attachments: Generic Website Page [login to view URL] Generic Website [login to view URL]