Requirements

This website is geared toward helping people reconnect with others from their past using an active forum, historical and current articles, event listings and announcements including obituaries & births. As this is the 5th major redesign for the website the client requested a blocky design with multiple sections for each of the social avenues. The home page includes two featured articles, four featured social announcements (marriages/births/obituaries/others), advertising and events. The largest, most used part of the site is the photo gallery section which includes over 30,000 images from years past. A unique requirement for the site was a 'Speaker's Bureau' - a repository of teaching materials for individuals interested in learning or instructing others about Saudi Arabia and its culture.

Solutions

The website is built in the Umbraco platform paired with a WordPress blog for articles, which was a superb fit for a site of this caliber. With approximately 20,000 pages and 30,000 images, the site runs quickly and is efficient to update. The home page design is separated using strong color for the featured articles and subtle shadow effects for most of the other sections, which helps separate the content, but doesn't dominate the long page. The photo gallery uses an 'endless scroll' feature which is highly usable for people scanning through so many images at once. The image search is highly effective in returning results in an easy-to-view manner, making the photo galleries one of the best components of the site. The ''Umbraco search'' used on this site is quick and accurate, making it easy for users to get to the information they are looking for.

Client Quote