web design

graphic design

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publishing
design

asat

Turbograd.com

Turbograd.com was an Internet start-up with a business plan of bringing the education and training related to competitive testing (SAT, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, etc.) online.

Since there existed no legacy of brand or applications, Turbograd.com presented the ideal opportunity to build a solution from scratch in a highly competitive market. We pieced together all the ideas that existed in the form of individual product specs, created the big picture of the site and finally implemented and launched it.

The information solution

The target audience of the site was identified as serious American students, 16 to 18 years of age and the information was designed to engage this lot. Easy, single click access to relevant tests, cross-linking to test specific course material, clear demarcation of subject-wise content and multiple entry points for the same information were some of the key features of the site's information architecture.
The course material was in the form of tightly packaged lessons with topic-wise modules.

The design solution

Right from the logo to the actual course material, everything on the Turbograd.com site had to communicate with the lively teenager and the challenge was to deliver serious content in a non-boring manner.
Colours, forms, fonts and photographs of the target audience were judiciously selected to create a universally appealing set of interfaces and a very strong brand identity. Highly interactive lessons were created using Macromedia Flash, with audio support to keep the student engaged. The various sections were colour coded to aid in orientation within the site.
Attention to detail was the key here with each part of the site being optimized for viewing by colour-blind audiences.

Considering the nature of the content - educational and hence critical to the target audience's success, intensive user testing was undertaken at each step of the site's design and development. User behavior on the site prototypes was recorded in specialized usability labs and studied for improvements and changes to the design and content. This was an ongoing process during the entire development period, resulting in a website that was real and tested.