Project Brief
Cydcor wanted to update their .com architecture, content, and aesthetic while preserving their #1 position in search. Since the site structure and web guidelines were created in 2011, the project had a lot to accomplish and was divided into three phases: 1. Architecture restructure; 2. Content updating and redesign of the Home, About, Services, and Careers pages; and 3. Full site update and integration to a CMS platform. The below details include the completion of Phase 1 and 2 of the project plan.
Understand
Cydcor has 3 main target users that need to be designed for: prospective clients, independent sales company owners, and prospective employees. These 3 types of users have their own path that the architecture needed to cater to, which helped better define the requirements for the site.
Research
The main issue Cydcor.com had was the usability of the navigation. To address this, I inputted the Cydcor.com navigation items into an online card sorting tool and sent the test to some select users. This helped to get a better idea of what content is grouped together in the user's minds.
I also looked at the architecture and flow of Cydcor’s competitors, who have similar user types, to analyze how our target audience might be used to seeing similar information.
Previous Cydcor.com home page:
Using that research and the page rankings (search, traffic, etc.) the Marketing team and I made informed decisions on which URLs to keep, move, and redirect. From these meetings, we created a redirect list, new structure map, content notes, and timeline to complete Phase 1 and 2 of this project (approx. 3 months).
Sketches
I sketched the new structure of the Home, Careers, and Clients pages keeping in mind the user, the new content, and the cohesion between the older pages with the eventual site rebrand.
Wireframes
I created wireframes of the sketches to better define the content on each page and gain stakeholder approval before creating high-fidelity prototypes.
Style Guide
I updated and refined our older web style guide to have more hierarchy and a more modern appeal. This was created for the developer to easily update the main Header, Paragraph, and button styles throughout the entire site, as well as for me to efficiently update my wireframes to be compelling interfaces that would still work within the current Cydcor.com experience.
Process
The pages went through several iterations. Below you'll see the home page in its beginning phases to the end result.
Prototype
Once in its final stages, the high-fidelity prototype was then tested, refined, and passed on to the developer for implementation.
Final Product
By incorporating video and photography, organizing the site architecture, and eliminating redundant content; Cydcor.com now tells the Cydcor story more thoroughly and succinctly. Please feel free to check it out at https://www.cydcor.com!
