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Appen approached SM2 after a Google
search for "Joomla developers". They then reviewed our site, client
list, projects and contacted SM2 to provide a quote along with their brief
document. Appen is the world's leading provider of high-end text, speech and
language technology resources and required SM2 to update their previous static
site into a content managed solution.
Appen develops and markets sophisticated
computer-based speech and language technology products and services for major
international information and communication companies and government
organizations. Appen is recognised as a global leader in the quality and
quantity of its products and services.
Appen's products cover a wide range of
speech recognition, text-to-speech (speech synthesis), phonetic search, machine
translation and text applications such as Natural Language Processing ("NLP").
These are developed from the high-end fusion of Appen's computer science and
linguistics capabilities.
Creative
The previous Appen website design dated back to 2001 and
was in need of an update to bring the company in line with its global image.
SM2 created a new visual design for the website that reflected the following
characteristics of the company:
-
Part of the
Information and Communications Technology industry
-
Internationally
focused
-
World-leaders in
our specialized niche: linguistics and IT, text and speech, language data
collections Medium-sized company
-
Nimble,
flexible, customer-responsive
-
Friendly,
easy-to-deal-with, minimal bureaucracy
The design
created was consistent with the company image and the only design constraint was
related to the treatment of the company logo.
Technology
The Appen Joomla! 1.5 site
required interactive functionality for the visitor. Some of the functionality
included:
- Searchable
Product Catalogue: SM2 has built and modified many searchable product
catalogues before. Using Virtue mart as a base, SM2 extensively customised
the component to meet Appen's exact requirements.
- Web forms:
For the easy creation of Web forms SM2 used an existing Joomla! 3rd party
form extension. These extensions allow Appen to build custom forms and
have their result emailed to an Appen email address and stored in a
database.
- Google
Analytics was also installed for tracking nd performance measurement of
the site.
- Search engine optimisation:
Joomla! 1.5 now uses SEF (Search Engine Friendly) urls by default to assist
with search engine ranking.
- Cross-Browser
Compatibility: SM2 conducted extensive testing to ensure website compatibility
with the multiple browsers.
- Joomap is a sitemap component for Joomla that shows the normal Menu Structure, Content>
Categories and Sections in a hierarchical list. Sitemaps are used to assist in SEO and for user
experience in searching your site.
- SM2
also provided web hosting
http://www.appen.com.au
Date Launched: Thursday, 28 August 2008
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