Web support proposal for The Media Group, UBC
Prepared by Sol 3 Systems
October 19 2009
This document summarizes the basic costs where predictable and our vision forwebsite support and improvement by Sol 3 Systems.The work will be conducted by David Chisholm,Banjo Benjaminor another staff member of Sol 3.
In this document you will find six sections as outlined below
��.Basic Costs and estimates.
��.What we need from the Media Group.
��.How we do things.
��.Analysis of similar organizations and their web sites.
��.Various proposals, projects and improvements with quotes based on our analysis
��.Conclusion
The basic time for simple support and changes are listed below, all work is to be done based on the quoted price of $150 Canadian + GST per person hour. If a site visit for planning and consultation is necessary billing will be $100 Canadian + GST per hour per person based on a minimum of two hours. Price is negotiable for larger projects or implementations. Website work will be billed in 15 min increments. If we provide a quote for two hours and the work takes three we will bill for two hours. If we quote for two hours and the work takes one we will bill for one.
Basic Costs and Estimates.
��.Administration and discovery time (if necessary)
Generally around 15-30 min, more for larger implementations
��.New static page
1 to 2 hours depending on complexity.
��.New form
2 to 4 hours depending on complexity.
��.Page edits
less than an hour.
(Changes to existing text or addition of news item etc)
��.Framework changes
Framework changes would be changes to side wide feature such as layout
or navigation. Time would be needed for consultation and decision
process. A very rough guesstimate for implementing site wide
framework changes would be about a day.
��.New features
This would be things like workflow automation, project calculators,
customer or partner login areas, etc. The scope of these varies
greatly and would be quoted individually.
**All Items assume copy writing and graphics to be supplied by the media group**
What we need from the Media Group
We will want to set up a "Development" version of the website. The development version of the website is where changes are made and submitted for review and approval. Once approved changes are committed to the "Live" site. We could setup the development website on our server or yours. FTP login information will be required in order to commit changes to the Live site. Typically we like to set up the development website under a URL like dev.mediagroup.ubc.ca/.
As we discussed the Media Group will provide Graphics and Copy for the site. We do have both graphic artists and writers available if you would like to use our people.
How we do things
We will provide you with an e-mail address were you will be able to send all change requests and or quote requests. For simple changes one e-mail will suffice. More complex implementations often require more communications.
��.Objective & Scoping Process
- Meet with, or communicate with via phone and/or email with primary interested parties.
- Develop a proof of concept to facilitate further discussion
- Implement on "Development" website
- Respond to change requests
- Publish to "Live" website after receiving approval
Analysis of Similar organizations and their web sites.
Below is a list of other organizations that we looked at for comparison. Many of these organizations are not directly comparable; however they did provide us with a rough industry standard, we also included in at the bottom various interesting services offered that would complement your offerings.
Competitors (Commercial)
Genesis Integration:
Interface Media Group Inc. :
Lazerpro D.M.G. - Video Productions :
Fission Media Group :
Pulse Media Group:
Innate Media Group :
Frischkorn Audio Visual :
Interesting features and offerings of other similar university and private web sites.
The University of Alberta offers similar services and provides a simple presentation.
UC Davis in California
In addition to photography, illustration and graphics, these guys offer a really neat service of providing animations to assist instructors with the teaching process. There creative services offerings are not clearly defined.
The University of Manitoba while covering a much broader scope provides a number of informational links which increase traffic flow to their site as people are looking for solutions to common problems. This may be a useful method for your organization to use to attract AV related traffic to your site. Examples
Similar Offerings
Boston University has a great Media Group site, although they do not offer as many creative services as the UBC group. They have some features that really improve their ability to deliver product. For example,
The A/V rental and service delivery form is available both directly on line or as a pdf for fax or delivery:
The online resource booking and Classroom support services
It looks like the Boston University media group has equipment installed in classrooms for rental as used with very little fuss, just a booking and payment method. If you are not already doing this it may be something to investigate with the University. It would make product delivery simpler but the overhead may be cost prohibitive.
Indiana University
We really liked the how we work, find out how button leading to an explanation and a great list of questions for potential clients. We will be adapting a similar model for our own website. They also have a great blog which can only get better over time as they slowly add articles of direct interest to their client base.
Other interesting sites that came up during the exploration.
The University of Tennessee: Digital Media Service
Is almost purely a media conversion and duplication service. A possible low investment revenue stream for the UBC Media group.
Potential Projects that you may be interested in
An on line shopping cart for your AV products.
e.g. Broadway camera:
A Blog while occasionally time consuming can be used to draw clients to your site. It is a great way to showcase your recent projects and accomplishments.
A database showing your AV rental equipment availability and rental cost allowing for on line booking and payment.
Selling old and new equipment on Ebay and Craigslist is another way of bringing industry specific clients to your door.
A weekly or monthly newsletter with Specials is a good way to add to your existing client list and or keep your current list involved in your offerings. It is possible to tie this in with your Blog and have blog entries sent out as newsletters.
Your site would do well with a FAQ, or a series of FAQ’s for commonly asked questions per department; this can be added to over time or set up as an easily edited page for your staff to modify as time permits.
Providing the price list only in .pdf format is cumbersome. Ideally, the price list would be recorded once and then provided in a number of formats pdf, webpage, spreadsheet, etc.
The search function should be up beside the “How to Find Us,” link to make the page cleaner.
The Portfolio Pages: (e.g.
Clicking on portfolio links, open a new browser window, but would be greatly improved graphically if they were smaller and opened as a smaller flash pop-up over current page.
The “Quick Links” column on right hand look like advertisements, thus easily missed. These links should be much more prominent perhaps a third to a half of the page. They should be displayed as a unique "Getting Started" list for each service area. Large friendly graphics can be used to pull people into taking the first steps to getting their project started.
Providing collections of photographs for sale on sites like IStock photo could be a good venu for your photographic products and possibly bring more business. You may even be able to generate some income with them.
The homepage duplicates the links that are across the top of the page with buttons that are not integrated with the site design, We would recommend removing one set of the buttons. Either replace the red bar across the top of the screen with the blue ones along the bottom of the page, using the hover feature to fill in the text below them as they are moused over or update the bar across the top of the page and remove the duplicates in the middle of the page.
This comes down to the design of the site. We have two visions that would enhance the desirability of your site and showcase your creativity in a conservative yet creative fashion.
One would be to take the existing blue boxes and quarter them on the bottom 2/3 of the page using flash to bring the one that is selected to the forefront. The top 1/3 of the page would be used for your text introduction with a rolling presentation of key parts of your portfolio
Dave's vision is next
The first thing I would do is promote each item that is currently listed under "Creative Services" to the same conceptual level as the other service areas. This would result in 7 service areas instead of 4:
��.Graphic Design
��.Medical Illustration
��.Photography
��.Video Production
��.Digital Printing
��.A/V Support & Rental
��.Media Products & Equipment
I built the image below very quickly by copy-and-pasting elements from several other websites just so that I could provide a very rough image of the layout that I would favor. Please ignore the color clashes and other inconsistencies, this is just for discussion purposes. First, the red menu bar would list persistent links such as contact us, about us, etc. The six items under the red menu bar would be where the service areas would be displayed. The graphic or background color would change to indicate which service area the client is currently "in". Beneath this the screen would be divided in half. The left half would be for promotional material: service description, examples, testimonials, etc. The right hand side would be reserved for "Getting Started" lists. These would encourage the visitor to take the first steps while also showing them what to expect later. The primary goal is to encourage the client to take the first step.
Page 1 of 1