Revamping Metric Lab’s website
After designing the company brandmark for Metric Lab, the founders and I then tackled the process of redesigning the website. One of the greatest difficulties with this redesign was the absence of any user analytics on the old site. Without this user data, we had to draw from our own experience to gauge the site’s usability.
Identifying Issues
To point out problem areas, we used Little Snapper to take screenshots of the issues to address:
- Format to a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 ( 960 px )
- Optimize space by replacing vertical navigation with a horizontal navigation bar at the top
- Use home page better by using RSS and showing latest news
- Replace table-based layout for easy updating and better search engine optimization (SEO) performance
Goals
The goals for this site were straightforward:
- Clean design that promotes professionalism, usability and readability
- Good semantic markup that promotes SEO
- Strategic use of imagery and text to promote services
- Google Analytics to monitor visitor trends
- Easy to update
- Reinforced branding specs
Metric-lab.com
The result is a clean, professional and usable site called metric-lab.com. The header section cross-fades images that give the visitor an idea of the work and clients of Metric Lab. My client and I found the turquoise, gray and white color combination to be more appealing and accurate for Metric Lab’s identity, instead of the classic, all-white corporate look. The site was built on a WordPress foundation. We wanted a content-management system that was easy to update, promoted RSS, and adhered to great code and SEO practices.
The new site is structured around a four-column grid. Its content is given appropriate room to breath. Each section of the site is clearly articulated. We did all we could to make this site quick to navigate and pleasing to the eye.
Props
The site has been performing well and has received some great compliments. Here is what Metric Lab reported:
Working with 812studio has been amazing and the responses from our clients
have been phenomenal. We’re constantly hearing feedback like, “Wow, this is
the best use of WordPress I have ever seen,” or “This website not
only comes off sleek and innovative but very professional and powerful.”
Metric Lab will continue to use for 812studio for all of its creative needs.
