At Synotac, when we’re working with a client, we spend a amount of time in the define stage where we get to know our clients and their businesses so that we can create a custom solution for their web design needs. Sometimes that means understanding how a company or individual wants to be seen or understood by their customers, while other times that means understanding a manufacturing, advertising, selling or even shipping process so that we can communicate that clearly through their website.

Almost all of the time, we find that our clients have very specific needs when it comes to how their website will function, and more importantly, how it will be updated using their content management system (in most cases, WordPress).  These are some of the ways that we help them to meet their needs.

Building a Better Back-End

It is one thing to build a beautiful web site and quite another thing to build it so that it is capable of being updated by a non-web-savvy client who does not know or care to know about HTML, CSS, PHP or any other web acronym.  We understand that, and as a result we have harnessed the power of WordPress to build custom plugins to cater to our clients specific problems and needs allowing them to update their site and the custom solutions we have come up for them quickly and easily.

Case Study: Sunset Imports

Sunset Imports is a Portland, Oregon Audi and Porsche dealership who came to us in need of a few custom solutions.  There are many things we could discuss about this project (how we provided a less templatey site with more of a local feel to it, or the custom car search application) but to try and keep things short and sweet, we’re going to only focus on one of those custom solutions.

The Specials Widget / Plugin

Sunset occasionally has a number of “specials” that they wanted to present on their website.  The specials were a very important piece of getting people to go to the website as well as to do business at Sunset.

Here is what we were able to come up with them in the design:

They also wanted complete control over how these specials were displayed, where they were displayed, and the ability to add, edit, and delete specials quickly and easily.

We decided that a custom WordPress plugin would do the trick.

When it comes to WordPress plugins, there are correct ways and very incorrect ways of doing them.  The best WordPress plugins integrate seamlessly into the WordPress framework and utilize it’s extensive suite of powerful tools.  The plugin that we came up with for the Sunset Imports Specials is a prime example of how WordPress can be expanded upon to fit many custom solutions.

Here are a few screenshots highlighting the Specials plugin we wrote for Sunset Imports:

The plugin fits seamlessly into the WordPress admin area.

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The “Add Special” page consists of a form which adds the special to our custom specials database so that the specials can be organized and grouped together (as well as edited, turned on or off, and deleted).  There is also a preview of the special on the right hand side that gets updated in real time as you type in the various elements (title, description, and the image).  The images tap into WordPress’ built in media manager to utilize all of the image editing capabilities and media management power of WordPress.

Click to enlarge

The “Manage Specials” page consists of a top portion where Sunset Imports was able to organize and position their specials into four separate pages and multiple tabs on each page.  The way it works is that you choose the special you want to fit into the specific position and then click save order and those specials are locked in.

Click to enlarge

The bottom portion of the Manage Specials section contains the table listing of all the specials.  This table can be sorted by column, as well as filtered by section to make it easy for Sunset to find the specials they want to edit or delete.

More “KA-BANG” For Your Buck

It’s true that you may find “cheaper” options out there in the web design world for your next project or redesign.  But what Synotac can promise you is that it is well worth it for your web designer or web design company to understand your needs, like Synotac does, and to provide you with a tool that is not only powerful, but is easy to use and gives you the power to update your site whenever is needed.