Who? What?

The Moody Area Chamber of Commerce serves as a key business and economic development organization for the city of Moody, AL through activities including research, business retention and expansion and small business development.

Why Maran Solutions?

The Chamber wanted their web site to be an information hub for prospective businesses and visitors. Their web site needed to be a repository for valuable information about the city, its’ resources and surrounding areas.

Redesign of MoodyALChamber.com was imminent with an emphasis on creating an information architecture and visual design that attracted and steered their users in the right directions.

Process

The challenge before Maran Solutions was to understand the vast and diverse user base served by the Chamber. The Maran Solutions consultants worked with the Chamber team to gather information about users, information and services that the website should provide.

Analyzing the information gathered made it clear to the Maran Solutions and Chamber team that:

• The diverse user group could be classified into two primary categories based on their high level goals.
• Visual design should synch with other marketing collateral
• The site needed to be Section 508 compliant

These basic insights shaped a concept fundamental in design with far reaching implications. The MoodyALChamber.com site was transformed into a brochure site for prospective members, business owners and visitors to the city. With the strategic vision in place, the team began to focus on the information architecture that would organize the copious amounts of content being delivered.

The overriding strategic vision facilitated creation of the site map and archetype screen details that formed the cornerstone of the information architecture. The goals and priorities of the user groups dictated the high level classifications and navigation structure. A delicate balance of global menus, local navigation points, gateway pages and a composite array of relational links was woven to mask the overwhelming nature of the information. The team then began to create the visual signatures that would establish the Chamber brand identity. The influence of the brand identity has trickled to all supporting marketing collateral.

The Results?

Truly inspiring for us! Number of visitors to the MoodyALChamber.com web site peaked soon after the redesign.The Moody Area Chamber of Commerce continues to utilize the services of Maran Solutions to explore and implement strategies that align with the fundamental vision. Check out the Chamber web site at MoodyALChamber.com.