When a company begins a project for you but then bails, it can put the future of the website and its role on uncertain ground. We were called in to complete one of these.
"..skill, grace and extreme competence."-Ellen F. Franklin, PhD, CEO Acutonics Institute of Integrative Medicine, LLC
How it started
When we met Acutonics, they had come to a crossroads with an unfinished, redesigned e-commerce website that needed a dedicated development team with extensive ExpressionEngine expertise. A new look and feel had been developed and some products in their store had been migrated to Shopify, a decision the client had not been completely ready to commit to. The team behind Acutonics was aware of what they could see on the screen but was unable to offer a developer’s opinion on what needed to be worked on and what had been finished. Ultimately, the new development team would be responsible for client deliverables as well as the implementation of strong under-the-hood solutions while patching all needed unfinished features. We were prepared to deliver the TLC this site had been lacking in its incomplete iteration.
What we did
As a team, we decided to go forward with our goal of launching the new look and feel on ExpressionEngine 5. While we worked on the reorganization of the client’s many compelling content areas, the client decided to keep and re-set-up their Cartthrob e-commerce store rather than convert to Shopify.
We studied this website and its traffic for 3 years, making smaller, data-driven adjustments to page layouts and workflows. We knew we would need more as tech debt began to slow down our progress. We were able to discover how Acutonics was being searched for, who found it, what they wanted, and why they might or might not come back. This information became foundational in their latest web design, which made sought-after content easier to find, read, and act on. As the foundational leaders in Sound Healing, the website needed a clear navigational structure, unity between pages and store sections, improved legibility, and improvements in authorship all while being delivered as mobile-first, responsive web pages. We created a front-end design from the Petroglyph UI that would allow for a clean interface for a collosal, complex list of demands and concerns, multiple blogs, e-commerce store, and proper SEO abound.
The website has gone through multiple CartThrob upgrades, a new payment gateway, software upgrades, add-on
Major Features we implemented
Latest CartThrob version with Stripe payment gateway for security and convenience.
Vue.js mega menu, custom add-to-cart, and checkout.
Custom event search finder using Low Search allowing users to find classes by instructor, level, and other factors; all ordered by upcoming calendar date.
Redesigned home page to allow first-time users a more complete glimpse of Acutonics at first.
Restyled fonts, colors, and page layouts for modern browsing, including moblie-first, responsive code with a strict observance of accessibility.
An SEO-informed unified Sound Tools section where URL's accurately reflect the page hierarchy of the section, combining store and text pages for an optimal user experience.
Trimmed page load time through image transformation and reduction of external resource loading.
Allowed website authors near total control of navigational menus, page content, and website structure.
The Result
With a reorganized, simplified, modern hub of communication with their community, Acutonics entered into the 2020 holiday season with revitalized sales and class listings.
With the latest web design, Acutonics can flourish online and take advantage of the flexibility and strength of ExpressionEngine.
Our ongoing engagement has taken a turn towards engineering the website for the ability to track marketing campaign efficacy and bring Acutonics into the public eye with the authority and poise they have earned, allowing their 25 years of research into sound healing to speak with an even louder voice for the entire sound healing tools industry. While The new website is a reality; and when the software is ready we will begin the short conversion to ExpressionEngine 6 - long term release (LTR) which will provide 5 years of stability within the software version. More secure, more permanent and more tangible - the website is a full partner in the success of Acutonics.