Extra! Extra!

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the world’s foremost authority on diamonds, colored stones, and pearls recently worked with Extractable to launch their new website www.GIA.edu. The new website was designed with a coherent navigational structure that promotes critical user paths.

The site design and information architecture should increase student applications and stone submissions while driving repeat visitors as they have a more positive online experience with the GIA brand.

If you need a stone evaluated, are interested in a jewelry career, need to buy a ring or learn more about a stone make sure to visit GIA online or visit them in Carlsbad.

It’s great to see our client SAFE Credit Union winning cheers from the greater credit union community for their 2007 WebAward-winning site. Credit Union Magazine just published an article titled “Build a Better Web Site” which features SAFE’s three-pronged approach to web marketing. It’s also great to see Extractable referenced within the article!

Extractable, the leading West Coast interactive agency, today announced it has won eight awards at the annual Web Marketing Association WebAwards.

Awards Extractable took home include:

* Best Credit Union Web Site - SAFE Credit Union
* Financial Services Site Standard of Excellence - Schwab MoneyWise
* Investment Site Standard of Excellence - Contango Capital Advisors
* Medical Site Standard of Excellence - Merit Medical
* Medical Equipment Site Standard of Excellence - Merit Medical
* Pharmaceuticals Site Standard of Excellence - Victory Pharma
* Technology Site Standard of Excellence - Network General
* Technology Site Standard of Excellence - IDT

The Web Marketing Association was founded in 1997 to help set a high standard for Internet marketing and development of the best web sites on the World Wide Web. Staffed by volunteers, this organization is made up of Internet marketing, online advertising, PR, and top web site design professionals who share an interest in improving the quality of online advertising, internet marketing, and web site promotion. Now in its 11th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual web site award competition that names the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all web site development. More than 2,400 sites from 40 countries were adjudicated during this year’s competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology.

“We are very pleased to receive this recognition from our peers,” commented Craig McLaughlin, Extractable’s President and CEO. “These awards further validate Extractable as the leading provider of interactive services to financial services, life sciences, and high technology firms looking to leverage the web as a core component of their overall customer experience strategy. Our primary focus is creating business results for our clients through the online channel. The sheer number of awards we won this year is a testament to the quality of our people and their commitment to consistently delivering the best to our clients. We are lucky to have such a killer team.”

I was forwarded this article from the Palo Alto Daily news yesterday. The article covers the recent launch of the City of Palo Alto’s new website and the rising tide of public disdain for it, citing long load times, an odd color palette, low contrast, and a disjointed user experience. The article also points out that Palo Alto paid a tidy price for the site, especially when compared what Mountain View paid for their site.

Update:
I see Valleywag’s got a short critique here.

Extractable is pleased to announce a new hire within our Strategic Services group: Mathew Quilter.

Mathew Quilter joins Extractable as a Web Strategist. He previously worked at Walmart.com, Logitech.com and Xerox.com. He has managed content from initial development to global rollout, launched Web marketing programs across multiple geographies, and consulted to various start-ups on issues from Web lead-generation to globalization strategies.

We are proud to have Mathew on board!

Extractable is proud to announce the launch of the redesigned Cypress Semiconductor homepage.

The new Cypress Semiconductor homepage uses an interface that’s crisp and pleasant; well-organized and well designed. Start running your mouse over the page and you’ll realize that there’s a lot more going on than what meets the eye without user-interactivity and, at which point, you’ll appreciate its design even more because it maintains its clean form even with all that functionality.

Behind this nifty façade are the inner workings of a mix of CSS, JavaScript and Flash. The Cypress Homepage redesign project came with UI Development challenges that were unprecedented, never seen before on the web, and later provided stepping stones for other projects.

The official Cypress press release is posted here.

Congrats team!

We are proud to announce the launch of our first project with McAfee. We designed a Flash-based product demo with voiceover to market McAfee’s Secure Internet Gateway appliance. The Secure Internet Gateway provides small and medium-sized businesses a strong line of defense against web and email threats, including spam, phishing, viruses, and spyware.

Nice job, team!

The demo is live at: www.mcafee.com/us/smb/products/promos/sig/index.html

Extractable is pleased to annouce the launch of the Schwab MoneyWise web site! Kudos to the Extractable team for a solid inital project, resulting in site launch during Financial Literacy Month. The team is excited to continue enhancing the site with additional activities, tools, content, and a community forum! More information regarding the site’s charter can be found in the official Charles Schwab press release.

The site is live at: http://www.schwabmoneywise.com

Being an avid foodie living in San Francisco, Citysearch has long been part of my restaurant search arsenal, which also includes Yelp, sfgate, sfstation, and Chowhound. I’m not alone in using the site this way: 6 of the top 10 searches in Citysearch San Francisco are related to food. So it’s good news that Citysearch updated its website last week, creating a richer user experience while implementing Web 2.0 standards.

Aside from the fresh look and feel, some of the updates include:

1. Text messaging – This is probably the most convenient new feature. You can now send your search results to your phone via text messaging and receive the phone number, address and user ratings.

2. Behind-the-scenes videos – Citysearch offers short 1-minute videos of local restaurants, bars, hotels, and so on. Just like Chow. Now you can see the venue before you go.

3. Improved search - You can refine your search with more categories, such as group dining, carry out, lunch spot, and late night dining. You can also map your results much easier.

4. Better interaction design – Pop-up menus, for example, have replaced classic pull-downs, so you can see all the neighborhoods at once when you begin your search. This gives you a global view of your options, something pull-down menus can’t do.

5. Better organization of content – On the restaurants hub page, you can check out featured restaurants and popular new hotspots or select a checkbox for ‘searching restaurants only.’ No need to drilldown to another page anymore. And when you find the venue you want, you can also identify ‘what’s nearby.’ With the click of a button, you can see a map of hotels, bars, theaters, banks, etc. in the surrounding area.

I still have a few complaints. Search needs some work; it’s inconsistent. When you select the button to ‘map your results,’ it doesn’t always work. But overall, Citysearch has done a great job with this update. The site has definitely improved the user experience for people on-the-go. Now if they could only find a way of making parking easier.

Congrats to the Extractable team on the launch of the redesigned Merit Medical website.

The site is live at: http://www.merit.com