John I. White

ISIN Website

Irish Software Innovation Network (ISIN) website (2011)

Just gone live on 29th November, this was a project we undertook with the primary aim of redesigning their website from an aesthetic and usability point of view - with minimal new development work. Much of that was in place and working, requiring only minor adjustment.

I also reworked their logo

Design

As the designer at Ionic I reviewed ISIN's existing site and put together a fairly comprehensive proposal of improvements, accompanied by annotated wireframe diagrams. From an aestheitic point of view the site needed a major refresh: brightening up, more positive colours and tones to reflect the energetic spirit of innovation which ISIN aims to inspire and facilitate. Also, better quality and more uplifting and inspirational photography; and neater more professional and easily scanned typography.

Functional Improvements

The navigation was overhauled but also some of the site structure. The Database section which presented lists of members and their projects and IPs, with a search facility, was unweildy and not very attractive. We proposed renaming it to The Network because basically that's what it is, and what the ISIN is all about. It's now the real heart of the site. I re-designed the section and its sub-pages to give greater, clearer usability and an improved sense of context when the user delves down through its layers.

Technical

The site runs on Ionic's Cold Fusion content management system. Most of the visual improvement as brought about by means of new CSS applied to the existing markup, with surprisingly few graphics.