A standard bearer award-winning school district, Orange City Schools recently upgraded their web site to reflect the mission of their schools and serve as an informative and useful tool for the community which they serve. The new and improved website includes a fresh, new design interface, a multimedia section full of slideshows and videos, and a more powerful Content Manager that enables Orange administrators to update the entire site. 

A combination of the WRIS Content Manager and Macromedia Contribute make the entire website updateable by Orange Schools faculty and staff. This means important information and announcements can be posted on a timely basis. In addition, correspondence and schedules originally distributed via regular mail can now be sent via the WRIS Email Engine, allowing Orange to easily expand their audience, increase the frequency of communication and reduce postage expenses.

With its new website, Heather Moore Jewelry now has a online presence that reflects the beauty and quality of their products.

Heather Moore Jewelry, a Cleveland based company, is known for their stunning handmade personalized jewelry including rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.  Their jewelry line is often featured in fashion magazines including “Town and Country” and “Martha Stewart Weddings”.

Not only is the site visually beautiful, it features some of our best development work yet.  The site was written in ColdFusion, our language of choice for rapid development time.  We had a tight deadline for this project so efficient programming was of the essence. 

Shoppers can browse and select from HMJ’s extensive catalog, allowing them to create a truly unique piece of jewelry, all online.  This catalog is powered by an extensive database and custom content manager on the back end.

We utilized AJAX driven commands to make the shopping experience easier.  No need to refresh the page when changing quantities or sizes – it’s all done inline.

The site’s shopping cart features functionality often seen with much larger e-tailers.  For instance, the smart checkout remembers who you are, allowing for one-click ordering.  This makes the shopping experience easier for the customer while helping to increase sales for HMJ.

One of our favorite things, however, is that shoppers can create “projects”.  A shopper can design a piece of jewelry, save it and work on it later.  This encourages repeat visitors and promotes brand loyalty.

This site was truly a team effort with everyone on the WRIS team pitching in at some point.  The team leads were Bonny Lafave (Project Management), Craig Minch (Web Design) and Adam Euans (Web Development).

We work with a wide variety of clients who range from web experts to those launching their very first web site.  I ran across a blog post of Web Design Industry Jargon and thought it was a nice comprehensive and easy to understand resource.

A few sample entries:

Below the Fold
This term is a carry-over from newspaper publishing days. In newspaper terms, “below the fold” means content was on the bottom half of the page (below the physical fold in the paper). In web design terms, “below the fold” refers to the content that is generally going to be below the point first viewable to the average website visitor in their browser (in other words, viewers would have to scroll down to see the content).

Breadcrumb
Breadcrumbs are the bit of navigation elements that generally appear near the top of a give web page that show you the pages and subpages the appear before the page you’re on. For examples, on a blog, the breadcrumbs might look something like: Home > Category > Year > Month > Post (or they might be a lot simpler that that). The breadcrumbs term comes from the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”

Content Management System
Also known as a CMS, the Content Management System is a backend tool for managing a site’s content that separates said content from the design and functionality of the site. Using a CMS generally makes it easier to change the design or function of a site independent of the site’s content. It also (usually) makes it easier for content to be added to the site for people who aren’t designers.

Landing Page
A landing page is the page where a visitor first enters a website. Oftentimes, a special landing page is created to elicit a specific action from the new visitor (usually in connection with an advertising or marketing campaign).

Really Simple Syndication
Also referred to as RSS. RSS is a standardized XML format that allows content to be syndicated from one site to another. It’s most commonly used on blogs. RSS also allows visitors to subscribe to a blog or other site and receive updates via a feed reader.

TrueHero.org, which was designed and developed by WRIS, was recently featured in Crain’s Cleveland Business (subscription required):

The former CEO of Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. and Lamson & Sessions Co. [Mike Merriman] earlier this year quietly launched a nonprofit called True Hero, which only now is getting a formal unveiling. The web-based organization, at www.truehero.org, will award a total of $20,000 to 12 public service projects carried out by high school and college students and non-school groups consisting primarily of participants 23 years old and younger.

In a reflection of True Hero's launch in the Facebook/social media age, the content of the web site is almost totally generated by users.
Student groups submit descriptions of their projects, and monetary awards are made based on projects that receive the most votes. (The site's technology prevents people from voting for a particular project more than once, though users can cast votes for up to five projects.)

We've enjoyed working with Mike on this very cool venture.  Go vote for one of the 50+ service projects vying for prize money!