Agency:Dashboard Communications
Project Role: Lead Art Direction, Site Frame Work Redesign, Project Management
Capping off an very rewarding 3 years working on the Ontario Toyota Dealers client at Dashboard I was able to help in bringing forward a much needed redesign of the realtoyota.ca web site bringing out a new home page, new vehicle details pages and photo galleries – while still maintaining some of the older content the site was known for such as the past video walk-arounds, parts and service sections and dealer locator (which had be done at a previous time by various Dashboard team members). The key reason for this site redesign was to bring the site up to modern online requirements by building a flexible architecture that was built with evolution in mind. Unlike it’s predecessor which was build in flash over 4 years earlier this site was built in HTML with CSS and a collapsible architecture allowing for new sections and pages to be easily added or removed. The pages are made to grow as long as needed for any content and can support dynamic, static or video content easily. A major benefit was also the addition of social bookmarking, direct printing components and the always important SEO friendly content strategy. Bringing the OTDA into a modern online digital realm.
The home page was build to aggregate site content. To bring forward content within the site and offer easily updatability. So when a new offer came down from the dealers or a change was need it would be possible vary quickly. We felt there was a lot of good content including video walk-arounds, parts and service information and promotional content that was previously buried. The structure allowed us to bring that content forward.
Finally, in-depth research in user interaction was integrated into the entire site flow to build a streamlined experience. These updates included visual main navigation, descriptive tool tips on rollovers to give users context of what they would click through too, descriptive live text with banners and placement of content along the fold. By putting various content purposely on the fold we force the user’s curiosity to explore and scroll down the pages that are longer – ensuring they experience all content on each page.
Future phases of the site will included an updated dynamic dealer-locator and additional sections focused on social communication between customer and dealer. These additions will hopefully be built in at a future date by the hardworking team at Dashboard.