Michael Darling & Megan Tillman Kendall Kelly Tech and Business Comm 6 February 2013 Proposal: Mrs.

Gs Tees Company Website Summary This proposal addresses changes that need to be made to Mrs. Gs Tees website. We will discuss changes in layouts in relation of Mrs. Gs Tees service tab on the companys website, what information needs to be deleted, what information needs to added or altered, and why these changes are important to the success of Mrs. Gs company. We will be using Tiffin University professors Canchu Lins website principles as a guide to re-create a Mrs. Gs Tees website. We will also present a reasonable budget along with a time schedule in which we will follow to build this new site successfully. Introduction When building a professional website for a business, thorough communication is key. For example, Canchu Lin, Professor of Communication at Tiffin University, teaches five key principles that are critical in generating more business through the use of a website. Lins principles include, (1) building a dialogic loop between the organization and its audiences, (2) providing useful information, (3) generating return visits, (4) making the interface intuitive and easy to use, and (5) eliminating unnecessary links and ads to retain visitors (Lin). After analyzing Mrs. Gs Tees company website, we found that many of these principles had been neglected, and we plan to redesign part of the website with the vision of incorporating these five principles. The biggest issue, in regards to customer usability, which is another key element in running a successful business website, is the Mrs. Gs Tees site service tab. This service tab was

originally designed to provide useful information to customers concerning all products that Mrs. Gs offers. However, it does not function well enough to ensure that customers are easily able to navigate the site, find useful and accurate information, and, finally, understand and envision what is being presented and sold to them in an adequate visual and textual manner. Typically, tee-shirt companies display all of their products using relatively small, utilitarian images, offer a plethora of information and descriptions, and ultimately satisfy their customers by making their websites as clear and easy to use as possible. Our goal is to implement these qualities in order to make the site more successful using the guidelines set by Lins five key principles. We are qualified to redesign the service tab due to our extensive experience with the Adobe Creative Suite programs and our completion of the Document Design and Print Production courses. Project Description We will be redesigning the service tab of Mrs. Gs Tees website. This tab needs to be redesigned due to its misleading and ambiguous information, confusing price layout and structure, lack of visual appeal and representation and, finally, inaccurate product descriptions. We are aiming to make this website more accessible and accurate in order to maximize ease of use for customers. We want to convey clear and concise information to users as well as display products in ways that minimize confusion in terms of product selection. Updating this service tab will lead to more customer confidence because it will be easy to navigate, easy to understand, and simple, generating more traffic to the site and

communicating to customers that Mrs. Gs Tees can be trusted to deliver quality products that are true to their corresponding descriptions and images. We have come up with a thorough plan to redesign the service tab which is grounded in Lins five key principles and based on what we believe, as general users of websites, should be incorporated into the design of primary navigation elements. 1. We plan to change the service tab from a link to a drop down menu. A drop down menu will display all services separately, so that the information on the site is less repetitive and more easily accessible to customers. A more effective service tab will eliminate the customer frustration caused by having to fish through extemporaneous and often incorrect information simply to find one item. With a drop down menu, users are able to navigate directly to what they are searching for. According to Lins principles one, four, and five, this drop down menu will [make] the interface intuitive and easy to use, and eliminate unnecessary links, while building a dialogic loop between the organization and its audience. 2. We would like to dedicate a page to each service, with each page containing thorough descriptions of the various products complete with visual representations, accurate pricings, additional charges, and an electronic form that for quotes and bulk offers. As of now, all of these things are displayed separately on different pages, making it easy for customers to get lost and frustrated. Paginating the various services will allow for users to single in on specific products and services rather than face and attempt to decode the current barrage of information as it now stands, making the website much more comfortable and easier to use (as suggested by Lins fourth principle) and

building customer trust and confidence in the Mrs. Gs company name. Grouping all of the information together will lead to a more cohesive flow to the document, and all misleading information will be removed or reorganized within the page to lead to a cohesive and visually appealing site that is as easy to use as it is cuttingedge. 3. We plan to include a product catalog on each page. Because Mrs. Gs services can be applied to numerous products and types of shirts, it is important that the user recognizes this and is able to browse through the many selections. Again, putting a catalog on each services page eliminates the need for the user to leave the page or become distracted by other pages. Along with including catalogs on each page, we will also include forms for quotes on each page as well as additional charges that may apply with the purchase of certain specialty products from the catalogs. This alteration satisfies the simplest principle that Lin provides, providing useful information. Yet again, this modification will eliminate unnecessary links and ads to retain visitors. 4. We would like to make this service tab more visually appealing. We have touched on the subject of including product images, and we would like to add to the clarifying effect created by these images by including brief image captions describing the product or products pictured. Specific images will clear up any confusion customers may have regarding the various products and the ordering process. Also, the site as it is now is very dull with a simple black backdrop. We plan to include more than one color on the redesigned services pages to really make the site pop visually. By throwing a lighter, softer color than black into the sites scheme, the site will become users will feel more relaxed and comfortable

browsing through the site without become bored or questioning the companys creative vision. After all, we are working with a tee-shirt company, and is thus directly related to creative design; the site has to look good. These changes are sure to generate return visits, Lins third key principle; if a user feels comfortable and welcomed, they will return to the site and have a greater chance of purchasing a product and/or making repeat purchases. Time Schedule As far as a timeline, we plan to have the project finished within 10 weeks. We will begin by redesigning the site using Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Indesign and complete the project by piecing together and subsequently uploading the pages and sending the new designs and ideas to web host. Week 1: Prepare final designs, and layouts Week 2: Prepare new color schemes Week 3: Re-write website descriptions Week 4: Collect images for the website Week 5: Contact Mrs. Gs Tees for accurate product catalog Week 6: Begin work on the website using Dreamweaver/Indesign Week 7: Create new service tab with new individual links and descriptions Week 8: Send final designs to web host Week 9: Week dedicated to the web host work Week 10: Review the final product and make last minute changes Budget Our redesign of the service tab will cost a total of $1800. We plan to start with a full-spectrum analysis of the most effective color choices to convey an

ethos of creativity and trustworthiness, subsequently designing and implementing an effective and balanced color scheme based on the results of the analysis, which represents $500 of the total. Then we will begin splitting up products into distinct pages, finding and placing appropriate product photos with captions, and adding links to the pages in the newly created drop down service menu, which represents an additional $1000 of the total. Finally, we will create a coherent product catalog and quote form and place both of these items into the pages, which represents the remaining $300 of the total. The site upload is included in the total. Conclusion We are offering a competitive price for a thorough redesign of the Mrs. Gs Tees company website service tab, including coding, color management, image manipulation, and pagination. We are highly qualified to complete the redesign task due to our collective experience with the Adobe Creative Suite programs and our completion of the St. Edwards Document Design and Print Production courses, which focused on preparing students build skills for world of web and graphic design. When completed, the project will drastically increase traffic to the Mrs. Gs Tees company site, and will prompt an increase in annual revenues for Mrs. Gs Tees. The new site will be more accessible, visually appealing, and effective than the original, due to our updated color scheme, coherent information structure, and implementation of Canchu Lins five principles for increasing web traffic.

Lin, C. Organizational Website Design as a Rhetorical Situation. Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on, (2007): 35-44. <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp. jsp?arnumber=04118383>