GS Handyman asked us to build them a website that would not only look great, but would also be easy to maintain for those with no programming skills or experience of managing websites. The main purpose of the site was to provide the client with an effective and inexpensive way to advertise their ”friendly, reliable and professional” handyman service to the local community.
An easy-to-use news article manager was required, along with a powerful WYSIWYG content editor, an intuitive navigation system, a search box and a secure contact form with which to receive email enquiries. The client also requested a photo gallery that was not only sophisticated enough to resize images dynamically and apply a “lightbox” effect to uploaded photographs automatically, but was also simple and intuitive to use.
A content management system (CMS) then had to be selected that would accommodate not only the client’s feature and design requirements, but also their budget and website experience. We presented the client with a selection of commercial and open source applications – as well as the option of a custom-built CMS - and provided them with a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each system. The client eventually decided upon CMS Made Simple for its power, simplicity, flexibilty.
The final step in the process was to harness the power of CMS Made Simple’s Smarty templating engine to create a custom theme that would incorporate all of the architectural and aesthetic elements previously discussed with the client. We created three themes - each with a unique colour scheme and layout – and presented them to the client for review, along with a brief overview of the features and benefits of each theme.
The resulting illustrative-type design compensates for the absence of a custom logo with a beautiful header graphic and uses just seven images in order to reduce page loading times. Site navigation is a breeze thanks to the custom-built tab menu system and dynamic breadcrumb trail, and the gallery section features multiple design templates for individual gallery styling if required. The site also features a modified TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor and, as with all of our designs, is XHTML/CSS valid.