This site was a unique experience to build as Relative Design "inhereted" the site from another design firm less than two weeks before the launch date and it had only the basics of a front page completed! Not only did the design passed on fail to convey the purpose of the site, but we had a entire class registry and payment system to create.

Our client had a catalog being delivered to several thousand homes in a matter of days that directed them to register for classes on the web and there was no place for them to go!

Our solution was to quickly modify a shopping cart system into a class registry so that our client's customers could begin to sign up for classes as soon as the catalog was in their hands. This included, obviously, class information; but also biographies of each instructor, location information and a back end communication system so that instructors could easily be provided with contact information for their students.

Another feature we added was an attention getting banner that brought focus to upcoming events and highlighted classes without coming off as a demanding "Act now and we'll throw in two FREE ginsu knives" campaign. It rotates three classes or events with attractive images and brief introductions that a visitor to the site can choose to click through to or pass by in favor of the more standard navagation on the top and left hand sides of the page.

Because of the social nature of this business, we also made the front page a blogging system so that Ken Lynch, the owner, could create interesting articles about the upcoming classes and keep his front page content "sticky."  Ken participates in other "web 2.0" activities so we included a Facebook and Twitter button above his class registry so that people could connect to MindGlo on other sites, but kept it simple so that there was no hard selling or desparate looking attempts at driving traffic.  The site is about the classes, after all.

One of the key things we did for MindGlo was give the owner control of his content.  We spent time with Ken teaching him the ins and outs of his content management system so that he could add and remove classes without needing to pay us for simple tasks that anyone who uses Facebook can do on their own.  That means he can spend more time managing his business and less time waiting for for someone to manage it for him.  We also made sure to get him hooked up to Google Analytics so that he could see what classes were generating interest, which were being ignored and how fantastically successful his sign up rate is in comparison to his traffic. While we know that the great classes offered at MindGlo deserve the majority of the credit for that, we would like to think that having a clean, easy to use site is contributing to that success.