Merant Redesign 2002

WEB SITE GOALS:

Merant changed the look of the web site due to a dramatic change in upper management, staffing, packaging, collateral and the location of their head quarters. They wanted a new design to regain the confidence of investors, and existing customers. According to customer feedback the older website was hard to navigate, and the main navigation did not pop because it was apart of the main billboard. So they wanted a fresh look, that was easier to navigate, faster loading and more consistent with Merant's new packaging.

AUDIENCE:

• IT Managers
• Build Managers
• Developers
• Age range: 30 - 55

DESIGN SOLUTION:

For this design I used a similar shape used on the collateral to define the top navigation. I also used solid black because it was used a great deal on the packaging and it worked with the three different colors used in the corporate art work, orange, green, and blue. I also wanted to a good portion of the shape to be a table to so the page would have a faster
load time.

Another significant change was the previous design did not allow for multi-level navigation's. The current design has a space designed for miscellaneous navigation and promotions, which are elements commonly found on the Merant site.

One thing Merant expressed to me was they wanted a graphic for each top-level section. Therefore in this design I used a lot of the art work found with in the Merant's UI and integrated them over with corporate artwork. I felt this tied all the looks together, and it gives the potential customer a feel for the Merant UI before they actually use the product.