Customer Focused Web Development

No sour grapes

Getting people to enter data online has always been difficult. Expecting them to do it on a weekly or monthly basis is sheer folly—which is exactly the kind of web development project we thrive on. First, we created a friendly login page for each winery's data security and privacy. The web site was carefully designed for fast, easy navigation to encourage use by the growers. Then, we simplified a myriad of questions and reporting requirements to a simple set of drop-down list choices—just pick-and-click. This had the added benefit of dramatically reducing input errors which plagued previous paper systems. The Weekly form takes about half a minute to complete. As a reward for this weekly task, the grower is provided with summarized data for online viewing, so trends can be spotted early. The application was developed using Active Server Pages and a SQL database. Over 200 wine grape growers use the monitoring web site and largely without complaint.

How To Plan A Wedding

Brides can be tough customers. They know exactly what they want—when they see it. Which is why a primary design goal of this website was to show lots of dramatic, colorful photos. To be exact, more than 90 wedding photos, representing 9 destination weddings in the Wine Country.
The next question is how does a bride-to-be browse through a myriad of photos without filling her desktop with open windows or without developing early signs of carpal tunnel syndrone.
Answer: create a low tech high touch user interface. We chose XHTML\DOM scripting as the coding method so site navigation would be smooth and intuitive. It also nicely resolved a project requirement for an even split between Mac and PC target Web browsers. A table-less design employing cascading style sheets (CSS2) gave the website an elegant, organic look devoid of a high-tech feel. See for yourself. Click the gallery thumbnail above. To return, click the back button of your Web browser until you get back here.

A 150 year old database

Building a relational database from thousands of recorded property titles accumulated over a 150 years by generations of people is no easy task. Over the years, these property titles and transfers were recorded in large books using varied descriptions such as a person's name or a landscape feature. Creating a good schema design proved very difficult. Our first challenge — create an online, searchable database by date, title, parcel number and map number and use fuzzy search logic to allow for wide variations in results. Our second challenge proved equally as difficult — set-up a back-end automated title recording systems that could be managed by employees who considered maintaining hand-written books part of the office culture and a proud tradition. Our analysis of how people look up old records resulted in some innovative user interface enhancements. Stored procedures and triggers were used in the SQL database to speed processing. And that's how you build a state-of-the-art 150 year old database.

Intranets Don't Have To Be Ugly. Or Beasts To Maintain.

Most web designers and developers avoid building intranets or multipurpose websites. For good reason. They can't do it.
We can. At Applied Web Strategy, we possess the project management experience to automate business processes, streamline communications, and not disrupt your organization, which is critical to a successful company-wide intranet.
Moreover, we know how to maintain a viable Content Management System (CMS) that keeps on delivering fresh and informative content over time, not just for the first couple of months.
One last point. It's not the CMS you choose, it's how you use it that makes the difference. Let us show you how.

Passport to a better life

Foster children are typically managed by multiple government programs. While records are kept by each program, a way was needed to maintain current and historical records, primarily showing the healthcare and schooling of foster children over the years. What made this an unusually challenging web development project was the fact that record keeping requirements for foster children are very extensive. So forms had to be designed for fast, easy, and error free input. This was achieved by many innovative user features: color coded fields, cursor leading, and sequencing fields to name a few advantages. This web site was written in Vbscript, Javascript, and used stored procedures and triggers in the MS SQL 2000 database. Both current and historical data for each child can be printed as a single report. But the real winners of this web application are the children and the information it provides to the people entrusted with their care.

Safety Starts On The Desktop

Safety programs have been around in companies for a long time. You just don't notice them until your name comes up to attend a refresher class or an accident occurs. God forbid. Then after a while, safety matters slip quietly into the background until next year or the next catastrophe.
Now there is a new, convenient way to integrate safety programs into daily business activities without disrupting your workday. On a single web page, you can read new safety information, follow links to resources and regulations, or ask a safety question. Plus, you can instantly report a safety concern or violation online.
There's more. Review a schedule of classes or workshops and sign-up online. The system automatically keeps track to meet company safety training requirements. Besides safety, there is ergonomics and emergency training you might consider adding to your organization as a web application. And don't forget, we're the professionals that can do it for you on-time and on-budget.