Armitage & Associates is a Vancouver-based, board-certified sports chiropractor. The clinic specializes in helping active people and professional athletes involved in virtually every kind of sport. With a long, successful background, Dr. Robert Armitage is a highly experienced chiropractor who has made a point of helping educate his patients. This philosophy of excellence became a pivotal element in the design of a bold new website to represent the clinic.

The old site was not optimized for the brand

The previous website (shown at right) suffered from inconsistent navigation. While it offered a number of useful articles, most of these were in PDF format rather than presented as web-based pages. The clinic’s passion for educating patients was not as well represented as it needed to be. In addition, SEO was severely limited by the structure of the web design.

The updated site design (see below) uses dramatic pictures of athletes shot from a first-person perspective, putting the viewer side by side with the athletes. Navigation is consistent throughout the site. Clinic location and hours are shown on every page. A call to action is shown on every page, encouraging first-time patients to quickly initiate an appointment using an online form, regardless of which page on the site they have navigated to.

Copywriting throughout the site is clear and concise, providing a compelling story of the clinic and its passion for dealing with prevention and recovery of sports-related injury. Copy is friendly and personal, reflecting the warmth of the clinic staff and its lovable office mascot, Buster.

A sports health blog on the site presents educational content in a web-based format, with new articles added regularly. Each one lists related articles to maximize the educational potential and to make it easy for people to see all relevant information about their condition or area of inquiry.

• Visit Armitage website

Creating a website in a single language is a big enough challenge for most designers, especially when the site is large and complex like the hundreds of pages applied to the website for The Pocket Testament League, a Christian service non-profit organization based in the USA. Converting the site to allow the use of multiple languages was an interesting project.

Most multilingual websites don’t bother with trying to maintain the content or design of the English site. Even large corporations like Starbucks have a completely different website for each region.

The League wanted to maintain as much of the content and structure of the main site as possible, to avoid disorienting the user when the language selection was changed. This consistency is an important part of keeping clarity for the worldwide branding.

The first language applied was Traditional Chinese, certainly the most difficult in regards to the overall complexity, but this allowed us to get the most challenging issues out of the way right from the start.

Much of the site is dynamic, with content such as live member stories delivered up automatically on every page of the website. In addition are the challenges of online ordering, membership and profile management. The website automatically sends Email messages, including confirmation and welcome messages on new registrations, and donation receipts. All of these had to be revisited, first to convert from an ISO Email standard to UTF, and then to address basic formatting changes needed to reflect the culture.

The translation administration was made easy. Click to view actual size.

The back-end administrative area was updated to include a translation section. Translators were given logins where they could access the site to modify the English language content.

All the pages of the site were updated to work as templates so that the other language content could simply be stored in the database, delivered up dynamically when those alternate languages were chosen.

Of course, not every page of the English site will be delivered up in other languages, because in some cases it won’t be relevant. So the menu structure was revised, providing a simple way to modify the menu for each language. If a page cannot be displayed in the target language for whatever reason, a notification box is shown saying that the translation is not currently available, and the page itself is displayed in English.

Code was also applied that automatically serves up an alternate graphic if one exists in the currently viewed language, because some graphics contain text and we didn’t want that text to show in English but we also didn’t want the translators to worry about changing the pathnames for those pictures.

Systems were added that modify the “salutation” so that for Asian languages, members can be greeted with their last name first, more regionally appropriate than the firstname lastname format used in the west. Naturally, we also updated formatting to correspond to regional conventions, such as using commas where US numbering format uses periods and so on.

Dozens of error message strings and other components had to be made available as translatable “objects” so they could be delivered up appropriately rather than showing English error messages.

A variety of systems were put in place so that as updates to the English site were made, translators could see that pages were modified, with intelligent notification to allow the translators to review their work and make any necessary updates as easily as possible. Stories and related pages are only shown in the currently viewed language, and other things such as sponsorship, had to be adjusted so that people wouldn’t receive stories by sponsored members in a language they couldn’t understand.

All of this work was done on a minimal budget. For non-profit organizations, funds are generally always very limited. A donation by a gracious donor made the project possible, and we worked within the limitations of that funding to produce an outstanding website that can now be converted into any number of languages with very little effort. The resulting site, accessed through an easy “language selector” visible at the top of each page, is fast to load, relevant, and successfully communicates the consistency of this growing organization.

• View the live Traditional Chinese website

Jill Pennefather is one of Vancouver’s best real estate agents. A Medallion award winner, she has a unique approach to selling homes that produces remarkable results. She’s also an amazing person: warm, honest, caring and full of energy.

Jill’s website is built on the foundation of the Ubertor system, a very function if somewhat limited template structure used by many real estate agents. The limitations are similar to those found in most template-driven systems, a lack of flexibility in how you create and design the website content. But it provides some powerful features essential to the real estate industry. The project required all the changes to be made within the structure of the system.

Jill’s previous site lacked the sense of displaying her personal warmth. It didn’t convey the character of the wonderful person behind the site. As such, it fell short of presenting her “brand” to those who might go to the site to find out more about her. It also lacked clarity about what made her different from other agents. And, with all the text the same size and using white text on a dark background, the copy it did have was hard to read. Furthermore, there were no calls to action on the site.

An improved graphical masthead presents her name in a stronger way. Copy was rewritten to present a clear impression of what makes Jill different, along with constant calls to action.

The resulting site is much clearer and more vibrant, bringing to light a strong picture of this great real estate expert and a clear understanding of how she goes above and beyond the normal standards on behalf of her customers. The copy was written to avoid appearing as if it was boastful or arrogant, because that would not have reflected her warm, humble character. All of this was done with a minimal budget, just modifying existing documents on the website.

• Visit Jill Pennefather website

Competitive ballroom dancing, known as “DanceSport,” is filled with energy, drama, and a sense of formal elegance. But most competition websites are poorly designed, conveying none of that power. One of the objectives in this project was to communicate a lot of information about the event and to do so while looking elegant and classy.

Can-Am DanceSport Gala, one of North America’s most prestigious competitions, also needed to communicate that this event was returning from a long hiatus. It was the first time back since 2003, an 8-year period. Many of today’s top dancers would not have experienced this exciting event and would be unaware of the incredible legacy it represents on the DanceSport circuit. To address this, the site features highlights from past years, presented on the home page and in a special gallery of photography and video clips showing some of the world’s best-known DanceSport couples in action.

• Visit Can-Am DanceSport Gala website

The previous Waterscene website, also designed by Adwiz in 2005, was beautiful but lacked some of the benefits of recent developments in website structure. It was difficult to add new articles. The older HTML foundation did not take advantage of PHP code to enable dynamic elements. Clearly it was time for an update. The new Waterscene site retains the presentation of beautiful pond designs throughout, reflecting an emphasis on the beauty of water gardens. But it adds a number of powerful dynamic features, including the ability to add new articles at any time, social media linking, and a sidebar showing the latest content.

Navigation was also improved, making it easier for people to find content. Some of this was just a matter of simplifying the navigational structure. A calendar was added to show upcoming events, including the ability to display details about the event on a separate page, along with a Google map.

• View Waterscene website

Sometimes time isn’t a luxury. In the case of Compass Biotech, the company had a bad experience with its website development and turned to the Adwiz to save the day. A new website design needed to be built and operational within 24 hours. Was it possible?

Thanks to the advanced stage of WordPress, it is possible to build a sophisticated website in a day. Something like this, while still possible years ago, would have represented significantly more work. A new domain name was procured, the hosting set up, WordPress installed, the site structure was designed, images researched and optimized, and content written and developed. Less than 24 hours later, the site was open for public viewing.

• Visit Compass Biotechnologies website

Padden Trails is an innovative residential real estate development near Bellingham, WA focused on providing high quality community living for those who enjoy an active lifestyle. The website needed to reflect the active nature of the project, with a quality visual style despite a very limited budget. Using Worpress allowed us to achieve these objectives. The site is professional and crisp looking, while allowing the client to present news updates and other changing information in a timely manner without compromising the visual integrity of the layout.

• View Padden Trails website

North Delta Evangelical Free church is a vibrant worship community made up of all ages. The previous website, though well maintained, lacked the visual energy that reflected the congregation and its needs. It was time for a new site design. Using WordPress, the new website provides a powerful calendar that’s easy for church staff to update, presenting events for the coming week and what’s happening today as two sidebar items on the home page. In addition, the use of easy-to-change feature sliders on the home page allow the church to keep new events and other messages up to date. A blog enables the pastor to write short devotional messages on a weekly basis to keep the congregation engaged in what they are learning on Sundays.

Ministries each have their own information page, allowing as much information as desired to be presented, with a strong graphic to create drama and interest. The home page enjoys a special expanding panel that tucks away, visible only when someone clicks the subtle “Expand” link, so that the home page content is not too overwhelming but presents a balanced amount of information on first glance. Navigation was structured around a “worship, grow, share” format, reflecting the process of spiritual growth.

• Visit North Delta Evangelical Free Church

Dance studios have a tendency to do a great job of marketing their product in person, one-to-one, but to fail badly when doing so online. I’m not sure why, but most dance studio websites don’t do anything to inspire the visitor to sign up for dance lessons. So, when I had the chance to redesign the website for Oakville, Ontario’s largest dance studio, I wanted to show how a dance studio website should be put together.

The site leads the visitor through the key reasons not only for learning to dance, but for choosing this studio over other choices. Eye flow is managed to lead from one element to the other, each part adding another compelling reason to choose this studio. Vibrant images and a strong JQuery slider allow key messages to be presented with clarity on the home page. Primary motivators such as a wedding or going on a cruise are presented.

The site includes a calendar of programs and events, a news section, and the offer of a free introductory dance lesson to give the visitor a chance to try the product before making a commitment.

• View the Arthur Murray Oakville website

The Pocket Testament League is a Christian service organization that motivates Christians to read, carry and share the Word of God. The Adwiz has been working with the League since 2004, developing everything from the organization’s brand identity to the website. With recent advancements in how people were using the web, and with expectations for web communications constantly evolving, it was time to upgrade the website to reflect these realities.

The redesign moved from largely static page structure to a template driven approach where individual sections could utilize different header bar approaches to keep them interesting yet retain navigational consistency throughout the site. A sidebar throughout the site puts up randomly selected member stories to keep the site visitor engaged in what League members are doing. Links to related content allows the full depth of the site to be more easily explored, bringing more of the 700+ pages that make up this site within easy reach from anywhere. A footer utility bar presents dynamic action steps to engage members, motivating them to be involved in reading Scripture and sharing God’s Word with others. And a traditional footer anchors the entire site throughout the experience.

The home page was completely redesigned with a JQuery slider area that presents the main reasons for joining the League, with an easy signup process. Underneath are examples of Gospel of John covers, a short video clip, and other information, some of it dynamically generated on each visit.

A sophisticated referral structure allows members to create their own church landing page, full customizing the experience with not only their church logo but choosing other images and creating their own title, headline, subhead and other copy. In addition, members can generate free web banners, send invitation Emails to friends, and see the results of their sharing efforts in real time.

• Visit The Pocket Testament League