WEB DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL ACUMIN v0.1

Author: Mark Johnson

New Brand Media owns the copyright for this document and all its contents. This proposal should be considered private and confidential and may not be shared with any third party without the prior written permission of New Brand Media.

24/06/2010

Contents

!! About Us

!! Our Technical Standards

!! Our User-Centred Design Approach

!! UCD Methodology

!! Understand the Target Audience

!! Design the Information Architecture

!! Prototyping & Content Management

!! Software Licensing

!! Team Profiles

!! Deliverables & Cost

About Us

New Brand Media is a digital agency,

set up to make brands online through

the use of strategic design and

development methodologies

Our User-Centred Design approach is the

result of a over a decade of design &

development for some of the world’s

leading brands

We are structured to ensure integrated branding

across the multiple channels that make up

today's landscape

Mobile Web Social Media

About Us

Our Technical Standards

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the governing body that defines best practices for web

development. New Brand Media will work to these ‘web standards’ so that Acumin site can gain

many strategic advantages including:

1) Multi-channel content delivery (Mobile Apps, Social Media, Blogging)

The principle of separating presentation (Design/CSS code) from content (stored in a database

and formatted to XML standards) will provide Acumin with a future proof platform, well

positioned for integration with the imminent mobile applications as well as reducing ongoing

maintenance.

2) Reduce Maintenance Costs

Importantly, the aforementioned coding practices will reduce Acumin's content management

costs by ensuring the web database forms the single content repository or 'digital hub' for real-

time distribution to these channels. This will avoid any effort duplication on their part and will

allow Acumin to not only update their web site in-house but also potentially other platforms such

as mobile apps, simultaneously.

3) Accessibility Improvements

The law enforcing accessible web design came into force on 1st October 1999 and the Code of

Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27th May 2002.

“The Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by

refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.”

For example, if a blind user was unable to apply for a job because the web site was not

accessible to screen readers this is a provision of a service and would be subject to the act.

In reality, the chance of your organization being sued is very slim. Pretty much all websites

have some accessibility issues with many government web sites included! However, a website

in the human resources sector should be sensitive to discrimination and therefore so we would

recommend following web standards in Phase 0.1 to at least lay down the foundations of

accessibility. Accessibility should be seen as a long term ethical stance and we recommend

making your website ‘single A’ compliant as soon as possible after this initial first release.

Our Technical Standards

User-centred design is about understanding your target

audience and designing round their needs and goals.

Placing ‘the user’ at the centre of the design process makes

a web site easy to navigate and pleasure for them to use.

Consequently, high standards of usability ensure your site

delivers on the business objectives.

Our User-Centred Design Approach

RECENT NEW BRAND MEDIA CLIENTS:

UCD Methodology – ‘understand, create, evaluate’

Our methodology is an iterative approach, lean on documentation

and rich in action (prototyping).

RECENT NEW BRAND MEDIA CLIENTS:

UCD Methodology – ‘understand, create, evaluate’

Understanding the Target Audience

The following analysis will be conducted at the very the outset of the project:

Define User Profiles - User Profiling seeks to understand target users and identify their

needs and characteristics.

Establish User Goals – A process of grouping, prioritising and optimising the activities of

users.

Plan User Journeys – User-flow diagrams are developed and optimised around the

established user goals. These ‘user journeys’ are extrapolated to form the primary

information architecture of the site.

Design the Information Architecture

Usable web sites come from a focus on the ‘people‘ who will use the application, over the

technology or corporate structure that produces it. An experienced Information Architect will direct

your site content so that it is:

!! Categorised in a way your target audience understands designed to make to their goals

easy to achieve

!! Consistent, useable and intuitive

!! Optimised for search engine ranking

A sitemap will be produced as a framework for the site content, ready for prototyping.

On the Internet, ‘content is king’. Yet too often, content is not considered early enough in the web

development process in the rush to the visual ‘design’.

Our approach is to engage the content management solution at the earliest stage in order to

‘Prototype’ the information architecture in a ‘real’ web site driven by the database. This means we will

be perfecting the content throughout the entire project build cycle.

A prototyping approach therefore enables:

!! A web-based content repository that is visible and editable by all project stakeholders regardless

of location (Remote client access).

!! A more ‘human-friendly’ method of inputting copy into the database which can be previewed

immediately in a ‘real’ website context as opposed to being in isolated and unconnected Word

documents.

!! Improved usability. Writing site copy with a sense of connectivity to other pages will improve

screen logic and navigation.

!! Iterative content improvements throughout the project timeline.

Prototyping the Information Architecture & Content Management

Prototyping the Information Architecture & Content Management

The Acumin team will be set up with individual user accounts with varying degrees of authorization

to access and edit the content prototype and subsequently, the actual web site.

This will establish an approval workflow for Acumin to manage their site content from administrator

to editor going forward.

Any third party can be given access at Acumin's discretion, be that a PR company or SEO

Copywriter with publishing rights as appropriate. For example, a PR Agent may be permitted to edit

and publish content whereas a SEO Copywriter may only be permitted to add meta-tags and submit

content changes to the main administrator for approval before going live. This allows Acumin to

scale up and down outside support as they choose.

The New Brand Media framework is built on the Open Source Content management System,

WordPress. WordPress is the leading Blogging Platform in the market and being Open Source

there would be no additional licensing costs to Acumin.

The framework we have developed 'on top' of WordPress adds modular functionality

extensions that deliver on a number of typical business needs that we have come across whilst

developing content management systems for clients over the last 10 years.

Below is a snapshot of some of the key refinements we have made that make our system

infinitely more flexible and powerful than your average CMS 'out of the box':

!! Simple Embedding of Video, Flash and Podcasts

!! SEO friendly URL Structure

!! Drag & Drop Page Template building via the CMS (infinite numbers of unique

templates)

!! PHP based for rendering keywords from external sources in-page and indexable by

Google and others.

(SiteFinity license: £612Annual SiteFinity Support: £183 (calculated at 20% of initial license

cost) http://www.sitefinity.com/purchase.aspx

Content Management Software & Licensing

Deliverables & Cost

PROTOTYPE PHASE v0.1 Cost

FUNCTIONAL PROTOTYPE

Hosting Specification & Acquisition

Set up & Configuration of Apache web hosting environment

Database development

Sub total 750

INTERFACE DESIGN & BRANDING

2 X LOOK & FEEL CONCEPT DESIGNS

FINAL DESIGN Refinement

FRONT-END TEMPLATE & CONTENT FINAL DESIGN

- Home page

- 2nd Level Page Template

- News & Blog Template

IMAGE OPTIMIZATION / PRODUCTION*

Sub total 2600

Deliverables & Cost

FRONT END Time

Template Development

(HTML CSS CODE DEVELOPMENT & CMS Integration)

- Home page

- 2nd Level Page Template

- News & Blog Template

SUB TOTAL 625

BROWSER TESTING

- IE 7 (PC)

- IE 8 (PC)

- Firefox 2+ (PC)

- Safari 2+ (Mac)

- Firefox 2+ (Mac)

SUB TOTAL 562.50

Management Management at 2hr per day 393.75

GRAND TOTAL 4931.25

Our management is structured to ensure integrated

branding across mobile, web & social media

Team Profiles

Web

Jonathan brings over 15 years

experience to his role as Creative

Director at New Brand Media.He has

helped some of the world’s leading

brands engage, interact and build

relationships with their customers

through engaging, user-centered, brand

experiences.

Practiced in managing multidisciplinary teams, strategic direction

and development of an award-winning ‘Customer Experience

Design Team’ he is the author of the New Brand Media’s

user-centred design methodology with an in-depth understanding

of the branding, design and technology challenges facing

enterprise-level clients today.

EXPERTISE: ART DIRECTION, BRANDING,

INTERACTIVE DESIGN, USABILITY.

JONATHAN PORTER Creative Director

Senior Team / Creative Director

Social Media & Search

Trevor is a highly experience online

marketing and e-commerce professional

with over 10 years in the Internet

industry. He specialises in search

engine marketing, social media

and e-commerce.

Trevor believes passionately in the

potential for targeted internet marketing

to transform businesses.

The online opportunity for businesses is huge, but recently survey by Barclay card found that two-thirds of businesses miss out on

sales by not offering their sales on services online.

His approach is to consider all aspects of a company’s online business to grow traffic in a cost effective manner and ensure that this traffic is converted into sales.

As well as working as a consultant, Trevor has hands on

experience of running an e-commerce business through his online retailing business, Hello Baby www.hellobabydirect.co.uk.

His blog on e-commerce and Internet marketing can be found at www.trevorginn.com

Unfortunately, however, his magnum opus The Online Marketing Handbook is still a work in progress.

EXPERTISE: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION,

SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMISATION, E-COMMERCE.

TREVOR GINN Head of Search & Social Media

Senior Team / Head of Social Media & Search

Mobile

Mathias brings over 12 years mobile

experience to New Brand Media.

He provides mobile development

expertise with solutions for:

•! Apple iPhone

•! Rim Blackberry

•! Microsoft Pocket

•! Android

With 3 successful iPhone apps on

iTunes we are helping New Brand Media

clients to deliver their brand in new and

innovative ways.

A successful mobile entrepreneur in his own right, Mathias created the first complex PDA GPRS despatch system in London

in 2002. His ground breaking software on the early XDA’s changed the economics for Radio Taxis, Blueback and others

back then, but today, he prefers his iPhone.

Creating successful mobile applications is just one of many

strings to Mathias’ bow. He also has a golden (and platinum!) past as an Audio engineer in one of Germany’s most established

studio’s, achieving 1 platinum and 4 gold discs with artists such as Brian Eno, Hawkwind and a host of top German stars.

He is available for weddings and karaoke.

EXPERTISE: PLANNING, EXECUTION &

IMPLEMENTATION. STANDARDS & FORMATS, NEW

TECHNOLOGIES, PRODUCT SPECIFICATION &

ROAD MAPS, ENTERPRISE COMPUTING, CLOUD

COMPUTING, SO A IN JAVA AND .NET

MATHIAS DIETRICH Head of Mobile

Senior Team / Head of Mobile

Strategy John holds a BSc in molecular biology from

King’s College, London and a Master’s in

Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal

College of Art (with Imperial College). He has

worked for 10 years in industry including five

as Head of Design for a dot.com technology

company, where he was creative director and

manager of the 12-strong design team,

followed by three years as an independent

design consultant.

He is also a contributing lecturer in industrial

design and project tutor on the MET1 course.

He recently completed a PhD at Cambridge

University, investigating the role of design as a

strategic resource. He also loves

snowboarding and Jelly Babies.

John’s specialities lie within design management and strategy,

matching an organisation’s strategic concerns to design’s

potential contribution, through all areas of an organisation. He is

passionate about design’s value in creating experiences with

clarity and impact, simplifying complex tasks, and making

interactions clear, easy and pleasurable for all:

“Firms that really ‘get’ design make damn sure it is permitted to

reach through and between all areas of their organisation. Not as

easy as it sounds - the connections are fragile and the benefits

hard to quantify. But design integrates and shapes the ways an

organisation is experienced, not only by the customer but by all

stake-holders. This underpins the true meaning of ‘brand’, and

right now this means firms need to engage design specialists that

can join the dots. New Brand Media know their bit and where they

fit, and I’m delighted to be associated with their great work.”

EXPERTISE: DESIGN MANAGEMENT AND

STRATEGY

JOHN STEVENS Head of Strategy

Senior Team / Head of Strategy