The challenge
Reach Conferencing are a Brisbane (Qld, Australia) based conferencing service provider, that started up in 2003. Having just launched they were equally keen to have an on-line identity that would reflect their brand and core values. Reach Conferencing ?s principal goal was to communicate effectively with their customers.
The site was to load fast, be forward compatible and search engine optimised. Furthermore Reach Conferencing should have the ability to maintain the site?s content themselves without needing to refer to the implementation team for every site change.
The site should be structure in such a manner that future services could be added in a modular manner without impacting the existing structure and functionality and therefore not reduce the user experience.
The approach
After detailed discussions with the project champions at Reach Conferencing, Teacup In A Storm set about developing a proposal that would meet all of the challenges set out previously. After carrying out a detailed analysis of the requirements and talking at length with the people involved, Teacup In A Storm was able to put together a set of requirements, site architecture and proposal documents that would enable Reach Conferencing to move forward in their chosen direction.
The solution
Teacup In A Storm set out in the accepted proposal was the development of standards based interface (using xHTML transitional and CSS), which would be powered by the in-house developed & content management system. By adopting a standards based development approach Teacup In A Storm not only ensured optimised rendering times and search engine readability of the site, but also separated content from presentation allowing for easy and independent site maintenance.
The site architecture took careful consideration of the companies declared on-line goals as well as those of the end-users of the site. The site was developed using the open source PHP platform and MySQL database server to allow for flexible and powerful delivery of the site.
Adopting a phased approach to the development of the site, allowed a break down of the site goals into functional modules. In the first phase the aim was to define the on-line identity and allow the site to act as an information tool for both existing and potential clients. The second phase focused on delivering more customer focused interaction, but integrating a client registration and secure login. In the near future Reach Conferencing is looking to extend the functionality of the customer section with on-line billing facilities and conferencing booking.
