Organization and Information

This week, we're working on the basics that go into the build out of our online presence. On the front end, you'll see the introductory information that will serve to introduce AdSymetrix to you, our potential customer. Behind that, you'll find all the inner workings of the application suite and all the assistance you'll need to make AdSymetrix work for you.

We're going to use a content management system, Joomla, as our publishing engine. The CMS separates the presentation of content from the development of content. So we'll be able to build the design of the site once, and then update the information you'll see on the site whenever we need to. It is a simple, object-oriented way of building a website. The structure of the site sits removed from the information that fills that structure.

And that's where information architecture comes in to play. Think about your experience at a new website. When you first visit, you're presented with the task of figuring out just how to find the answer to the question that brought you to the site in the first place. If you're at Amazon and you want to buy a cd by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, you would just plunk their name in the search box. Because the path to your answer is placed right in front of you when you come to the site, you have a better experience and will probably go back the next time you need to find an obscure band from the 1970s.

Good information architecture makes for good business. Defining the easiest path for a web site visitor to find the answer that brought them to the website in the first place. In the case of our website, we want to explain in the simplest terms possible the powerful new services we offer the advertiser. We'll have that information up front and center. We'll have additional pages that explore these services in greater detail, and all along the way we'll offer the visitor a chance to test out AdSymetrix for their purposes.

We think that by keeping our site design simple, by presenting the information our visitors are most interested first and working backwards, we'll have a site that quickly delivers the answers they're looking for.

And, of course, entices them to become clients.