House on Payne

Lingerie ecommerce website

The Fitting Closet website is an online lingerie and intimates store, based in Austin, Texas, that focuses on empowering women to find the perfect fit for their bras and underwear.

I worked closely with the site’s owner to create a website that showcased her products as well as serves as a resource for fitting advice and tips. It began with providing guidance to the store owner on what ecommerce platform to select. The site owner ultimately chose Volusion to power her store.

After several design iterations for the website, social media and email to find the right look and feel for the store, I developed the store by customizing a Volusion template. I also duplicated the same design in Wordpres, using the Genesis framwork, for the blog portion of website, because Volusion does not support a native blog.

Project highlights

• JQuery slider on home page
• Custom graphics
• Bra size conversion tool
• Bra measurement tool
• FAQs interface using jQuery
• Consistent branding across website and all social media tools

Texas winery website

Wedding Oak Winery is a winery and tasting room in San Saba, Texas that debuted in 2012. General Manager and founder Mike McHenry asked me to create a website presence for the winery, help create content for the website, advise him on social media and develop a website that would be able to grow into e-commerce.

Solutions

Custom website (with an eye to e-commerce)

I designed and developed the site in WordPress. This allows Mike and his team to update the site content on their own. I created the design using inspiration from the winery itself, which has hints of Spanish mission-style and uses warm colors reminiscent of the stone found in the area surrounding San Saba.

Features

• Custom image slider using featured images and a custom post type
• Events management
• Eventbrite ticket sales integration
• Twitter feed

Content strategy and creation

I developed a content strategy for Wedding Oak Winery to help them create and manage content for the site and social media platforms. I also create content, especially videos, which are then shared on the website, the winery’s YouTube channel, and other social platforms to increase visibility.

Social media consulting

Part of the website strategy is to use it as a hub for content and share that content across social networks. Videos are uploaded to Wedding Oak Winery’s YouTube channel, embedded on the website, and then the URL is shared on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Online video production business website

More Eyes Media is an online video production company that produces custom videos for small to mid-size businesses in Central Texas and helps them share their videos for maximum visibility.

The company needed a website to show a portfolio of their work and market their services.

Solutions

Video portfolio

I was asked to build this website very quickly, so new clients could see it, so in order to save time, I customized a child theme built on the Genesis Theme Framework. The “Production” theme was built specifically to display a video gallery, which was perfect for More Eyes Media.

I created a YouTube channel for More Eyes, and uploaded each video using rich titles, descriptions and meta information in order to help search engines understand the content. Then I embedded each video in the portfolio, again using SEO techniques to maximize visibility.

Social media

Social media sharing is at the heart of what More Eyes does for it’s customers, and it is on many social media platforms. I gave the social media icons a special touch by using a sprite sheet with both inactive and hover states for each button.

I used AddThis to allow visitors to share site content.

The site invited visitors to sign up for More Eyes Media’ newsletter, which is managed through Mailchimp. I used Gravity Forms to create the form which hooks directly into Mailchimp and the visitor never needs to leave the site.

Blog

I advised More Eyes to blog at least twice a week about online video production and SEO, and share that content across social platforms, using the website as a hub for content.

Visual artist e-commerce site redesign

A redesigned Doug Naugle Fine Art website launched in August 2012.

The artist and I worked together to solved several usability issues for site visitors as well as content management issues for the site owner.

Solutions

Visitors were confused at how they could buy prints of Doug’s paintings, and they did not understand the difference between the “Store” and “Gallery.” Paintings were duplicated across the site with no easy way to move from the gallery to the store.

Also, the e-commerce plugin that was being used on the site was bulky and difficult to understand. Visitors were bypassing the store completely and contacting Doug directly about how to buy original artworks and prints. Doug needed a simpler e-commerce solution.

Doug wasn’t blogging. He uses Twitter and Facebook much more often to share his work. He needed an easy way to share his photos. He also wanted it to be easy for his visitors to share his art.

Visitor Usability

I removed both the store and the gallery and moved all paintings into one project gallery managed by a single custom post type, so site visitors only had one place to view artworks.

I removed the e-commerce plugin. Sales of artworks are now handled through Gravity Forms and a plugin that enables the site to plug directly into PayPal. The custom, dynamic form allows visitors to choose the size and quality, then it calculates the price and shipping, and sends the information to PayPal to complete the transaction. Doug receives notifications in both the dashboard management and his email.

Because of the delicate nature of original artworks, I created a form specifically for those interested in purchasing the original art. The artwork only displays the form if the original is still available for sale.

Content Management

I updated the WordPress theme in order to use custom post types. The post type “project” manages all artworks, and Doug only needs to manage his works in one place. In order to simplify content management further, all artworks are displayed using preset featured image sizes, so Doug just uploads an image and saves the project. There’s no need to insert the image into a post.

I created a number of meta fields in each post type to help Doug manage his artworks. Meta information records the artwork’s title, size, medium, price, and whether the original artwork is still available for purchase.

Social Media

In order to help Doug easily share his work across social platforms, I replaced some old social sharing plugins with one — AddThis, and put tracking in place so we can see how visitors are using the tools.

I put sharing tools on each artwork that allow the visitor to choose which social site they want to share the art on. I advised Doug to set up a Pinterest account, and showed him how to share his art on that platform and gain visibility.

Large Health Clinic Website Redesign

I joined the Austin Diagnostic Clinic in May 2011 as the Web Designer and Content Manager.

A little background

ADC wanted to redesign its extensive website, with a goal of better reaching its 50,000 patients and raising awareness of its many specialties and services.

The website had grown over 10 years to more than 750 pages, all of which were managed by Microsoft’s Frontpage application. ADC knew its website needed to be update so it could be viewed not only in modern browsers, but also mobile screens and applications.

Step 1: Content Analysis & Strategy

I started this massive project by performing a content inventory, then spent time researching the site’s needs by performing usability testing, interviewing stakeholders and patients, and surveying staff. The next step was to analyze the content and determine what could stay and what was outdated. Finally, I developed a content strategy for ADC that would not only guide content developm website and other online channels, but also govern content maintenance.

Step 2: Interaction design & wireframes

The content strategy guided development of content requirements and wireframes for each page. In the fall of 2011, I began designing and prototyping the website.

Step 3: Design & development

The ADClinic.com redesign is being built in WordPress using a highly customized child theme.

Ongoing: Content development

Content for ADC is strong, and I’ve recommended using video to communicate with ADC’s patients. The video you see above is an example of the videos we’ve uploaded to ADC’s YouTube channel. YouTube videos will be integrated into ADC’s site, and in time, we may upgrade to a more customizable service for video handling.

Site links

• Development site
• Current site – ADClinic.com

Photojournalist Portfolio

A little background

RobertMcMurrey.com is a portfolio site I developed for an Austin television photojournalist who wanted a place to showcase both his video work and his still photography. The photographer wanted to take advantage of the social media channels he was already using and be able to easily update his site with his latest works.

Design & Development

I developed his site in WordPress by creating a customized child theme and integrating videos through his YouTube channel. The photographer needs only to upload his latest videos to a YouTube gallery, and they will automatically appear on his website. There are also links to his Twitter page and LinkedIn profile.

The resume page makes use of javascript to expand and close sections for easy reading. All of the sections are open when a user first opens the page. The sidebar is customized to each page, so the photojournalist can comment on the contents of his work, without clutter.

robertmcmurrey.com

Visual Artist Portfolio, E-Commerce Site

A little background

Doug Naugle, an artist, asked me to redesign his website so his customers could buy his art directly through him, rather than through a third-party, like art.com or a gallery.

Naugle wanted his e-commerce site to be contemporary and modern — essentially, a reflection of his style as an artist.

Design & development

I wanted the design to be minimal, so visitors’ attention would be drawn to the art. I also wanted it to be easy for him to upload images of his art and manage his own sales. I decided to use WordPress to power a content management system and handle the e-commerce. The design uses a large slideshow on the home page to showcase recent pieces of art.

E-commerce is handled by the popular WP-Ecommerce plugin.

Site link

digdougsart.com