The original RobertHarris.com was nothing more than a marker, staking claim to our piece of cyber-space. Since it was never designed with our target audience in mind, the original website was lacking in almost every way.
Identifying our target audience was the first step in recreating RobertHarris.com. Our target is small businesses that can not support and manage a whole in-house IT staff yet require timely access to technical expertise.
Our website is the first impression we leave with potential customers. With our target audience in mind, we started defining the requirements for the new website. First, the website had to make a good impression. We wanted it to be the equivalent of a warm smile, a crisp suit, and a firm handshake. Secondly, we wanted to give potential clients a sense of who we are. We wanted to explain our services, convey a bit of our company's history, and describe the business ethics which guide our work. Finally, we wanted to showcase our solutions. Rather than just presenting final solutions, we wanted to demonstrate the problem-solving process.
Using Adobe Photoshop, we created a multi-page template for the website. The layout is clean and colorful, with three-dimensional borders that make the content pop off the page. The graphics give the website an IT feel with a friendly human touch.
The focal point of RobertHarris.com is the menu created using Macromedia Flash MX. The menu immediately grabs the visitor's attention with colorful animation and sound, giving an inviting, professional impression.
We then used Microsoft FrontPage to add content to the website. The home page is an executive summary of the entire site. The about us page provides our company's mission statement and company history. The news items showcase our solutions and the technology used to implement them. The services page describes the services offered by Robert Harris. The support page provides our customers access to information relevant to their installations. The contact page gives contact details for several departments.
We are thrilled with the new RobertHarris.com. It was designed to represent our company, demonstrating our expertise in IT outsourcing for small businesses to potential clients. The implementation successfully meets this design goal.