Computer Telephone Redesign Project
Computer Telephone's (CTI) site had gone stagnant. After a couple of years of not being able to easily update their site and tired of the old look and feel they needed an update.
CTI needed a new revenue source and the ability to attract new clients via the web.
After meeting with CTI our team was able to successfully devise a plan to revamp their website that included affordable pricing for small business. Cloud Construct's process began with a full requirement gathering phase and
then visual design meetings with the client. After deciding on color patterns and look and feel CTI decided they need an e-commerce solution that would allow customers to purchase used merchandise on their website while also
displaying all the great services and products they deliver on a daily basis. They also need an easy way to maintain the site on their own so they did not have to constantly call on support to do it for them.
The end result was a site with a sleek new design and usability for clients and administrators. Login functionality for all of CTI's clients along with an e-commerce solution custom built into their site
allowed for a very unique experience. CTI's new site was able to display all of the great products, services, and team members that makeup this small business while giving it a chance to compete with larger companies out there.
Matrix Tires Wholesale Project
Matrix Tires has been a family run business on the West Coast of the United States for the past ten years. Looking to expand their business by
moving into wholesale they needed a new avenue to reach customers. They decided to move the business online and allow retailers to easily
order tires from their website was the best approach.
Beginning with a full requirements gathering phase we needed to make sure all of the customers needs where met. We determined the consumer needed
the ability to search for tires, submit an order, and then easily resubmit an order. Lastly, the administrators of the website needed to be able to review order and
approve them quickly for shipping.
The site was built on the ASP.NET 3.5 platform with a Microsoft SQL database. All customer accounts are securely stored and allow for customers to login and update their
profiles and order submissions. They can review past orders and also add to old orders if they need to increase the amount of tires requested. Matrix Tires Wholesale is now ready
to start accepting orders online and is looking to adding e-commerce and spanish language support in the coming months.
Rate My Recruiter
Have you ever wanted to leave a review for a recruiter who helped you find a great career changing job? Have you ever wanted to make sure
no one wasted their time with a recruiter who could not even get you an interview?
Rate My Recruiter is planning on being launched late this fall so that recruiters and people seeking new opportunities can connect. Maximize your job search by working with only
the best recruiters rated by your fellow online peers. Recruiters will get the chance to advertise jobs in their fields of expertise and also maintain an online profile with the site.
We at Cloud Construct are very excited to see how the internet community responds this fall when we launch Rate My Recruiter to the general public.
"Cloud Construct did an awesome job! This is our first website and we didn't know what to expect. They walked us through the process and help us each step of the way. Cloud Construct's brings a wealth of experience among it's team members. Everyone on the team is friendly and passionate in what they do. The success of the web site has been beyond our expectations. We could not have asked for a better design. You should definitely consider Cloud Construct if you are planning on building a website."
- Christian Contreras, Owner of Rate My Recruiter
EZWay Products
Since 1941 E-Zway Products, LLP has been a recognized, innovative leader in the janitorial supply business. Their motto "We have it, we will get it, or we will have it made" coupled with their business philosophy of integrity, hard work and product knowledge has made them their clients' first choice when seeking answers to their most difficult cleaning tasks. They offer over 60 years experience in their industry. They would like to share their experiences with your company.
Nubble Light Challenege
It is our pleasure to introduce the first annual NUBBLE LIGHT CHALLENGE, taking place on Saturday morning, July 10, 2010. This year's event will include a USAT (USA Triathlon) sanctioned 2.4 mile swim race around the "Nubble". It will be open to 100 swimmers and 100 kayaker escorts. The race starts on Long Sands Beach and continues out past the Nubble Lighthouse, one of the most photographed lighthouses in the US, swimming through the "gut", the channel between the lighthouse island and the mainland. The race finishes with a sprint to Short Sands Beach. There will be food from local restaurants and awards following the race at the York Beach ball field which is one block from Short Sands Beach.
All event proceeds will benefit the Maine Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), specifically programs in the local area that help children and families affected by mental illnesses.
Bolstr
The Bolstr website is the first website designed and developed on our platform to fully utilize some of the latest and greatest web development tricks and techniques under the hood of HTML5 and CSS3.
We were able to design and develop the Bolstr web presence with a non-standard font, by way of specialty font rendering. This allowed us to break from the mold of “browser-friendly” fonts and employ a little bit of creativity. Instead of having an image represent specialty fonts, the font file is a part of the website solution and downloaded to the user’s machine. The web browser will render this font across the website where specified. This method is efficient because you’re downloading one font file which renders throughout, as opposed to a previous solution that consists of downloading multiple images for every text instance. This also allows for the content to be scalable and quite easy to edit.
Other newly implemented techniques all collectively make development much more efficient and are edging us closer to full CSS-based development. Some used throughout Bolstr include rounded corners, which replace image-based methods with CSS border radius properties. The background gradient is completed by way of CSS linear gradients. Drop shadows are present now with the box-shadow property. These are the more preval ent CSS3 features that while fun to use, still cause some discrepancies in older browsers. In order to overcome this, Cloud Construct has developed alternate styles that ensure graceful degradation in supporting these new features.
Anvil Henderson
Cloud Construct has engaged with Anvil Henderson on multiple web projects aimed at increasing productivity of their manufacturing division. Our first project involved
a system to retrieve shipping information for part orders already placed. Utilizing a form which takes in a PO number, employees can check the shipping status of their parts
right from Anvil's website. Secondly, Anvil Henderson approached us with a request to add automated materials quotes to their site so consumers can easily get a quote for parts they need.
In order for material quotes to be submitted by users they must fill out a form page with all the dimensions of the hardware. Every part is different and requires dynamically
generated form fields and a unique image associated with it for users to view while filling out the form. Anvil requested the ability to add and edit figures at any time and also to change the
formulas that calculate the price for these items at any time. Lastly, an email with the requested quote would be sent to the user who submitted it and a system administrator. To support the sbility of dynamic quote
generation we created a very verbose Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema definition. The form page is driven off of this XML based on the piece of hardware they choose to add to their quote. Once a user selects a piece of hardware the sytem returns the appropriate
input fields for that figure and also wires up the necessary form validation as well. The finished product resulted in a very easily editable quote system for Anvil Henderson and a streamlined quote request process for the user.
Boston Azure
The Boston Azure User Group website was designed to provide a fresh look for the users of the Windows Cloud Computing platform. The custom logo represents the group in the purest of Boston form. Stamped underneath the famous Boston skyline, you'll notice a font script similar to that of the city's beloved baseball team. Quite literal and somewhat symbolic of the Windows Azure Platform, the site boasts unified cloud-shaped graphics that pull the theme together. From the blue skies above, to the green grass below; the color palette mimics that of a natural setting. A blue heading sections off utility and navigation, and a gradual green sits at the base of each page.
The website was designed specifically with the information architecture in mind. The Boston Azure Group homepage provides a clearly sectioned stage where users can view the most important event information right on down to the nice-to-have's, such as a Twitter feed, giving an overall useful user experience. The design is fully scalable and will prove to be just as strong throughout the future of The Boston Azure User Group.
Survey On The Spot
Survey On The Spot provides real-time insights into how well your business is serving guests each day by providing customers with an easy-to-use and comprehensive survey app, accessible by any smartphone or online. On The Spot Systems came to Cloud Construct with a goal of redesigning their existing site so it targeted their primary audience. Their original site was targeting users of the survey application and not the owners of retaurants, hospitals, etc. Secondly, the old site was not well organized and left users confused about the product.
Cloud Construct, LLC went through an iterative process of wireframing and designing with On The Spot Systems until we came up with a solution that solved their problem. We also re-purposed all of their content and organized it in a way that users could easily find. From a design point of view the three steps of "gaining feedback" are clearly defined and shown through the three main spotlights. The project was a great success and the site has benefited from increased traffic since the re-design.
Triton Digital
Triton Digital hoped to reduce the overhead and time required to make content updates, create news items, and add press releases to their site. They wanted to add a blog so they could talk about important ideas and topics in their field. This would allow them to increase their presence on the web and show them as thought leaders in their field. Lastly, a key goal of the site was to share video and social networking updates throughout the pages of the site. Along with this came the ability for users of the site to share information found on the site with their friends as well.
Successful content management systems allow their owners to easily make content updates without requiring a strong understanding of web technologies. The open source Orchard CMS platform allows users to easily
update their site, incorporate a blog, and create new content as well. Orchard also allows for themes to be created around content so the site can switch designs quickly in the future. Content is organized into lists, pages, and custom content types. Functionality is organized into
modules. This separation allows the site to easily change appearance while still maintaining the content and underlying structure of the site.
Adding news, press, and blog entries to the site now comes with all the markup required to fit them into the style of the site. Changes are published or saved in a draft state until a user is ready to push them out. Lastly, everything is stored in a SQL Compact Edition database which makes everything very easy to manage.
Blogging on the site was customized so multiple users from Triton can login and contribute to the blog while others are just content administrators. Blog entries were customized so they come with Twitter and Facebook feeds when published. Finally, users can contribute to the blog remotely by using the XMLRPC service from Windows Live Writer which makes everything seamless.
Serving video across multiple browsers and multiple devices requires a player that can handle the various client configurations. Triton's site allows for users to watch videos from mobile devices that do not support Flash but do support HTML5. We designed our players with an HTML5 priority rendering and a Flash fallback so we could cover as many configurations as possible.
Cloud Construct Mobile
In today's environment it is important to have an optimized site for the mobile market. Cloud Construct can create this presence with an approach that optimizes a site for the most popular mobile devices.
There are several approaches to implement a mobile web site, and this example represents just one. This site is optimized both for the Blackberry platform and for the iPhone platform. One of the challenges encountered when creating a mobile application is accounting for the vertical and horizontal views. To overcome this we used a framework that handles many different aspect ratios. The advantage to using this framework versus creating a customized design is that a community of developers test and use it today. Additionally, as the mobile industry evolves, we will only need to change a portion of the framework to accommodate the update.
When developing a site, one should never forget this segment of the market because in the future people will be connecting to sites more and more via a wide array of mobile devices.