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Visual Design
Creating a site -- and a user experience -- that would appeal to a vast audience that crossed boundaries of age, gender, and familiarity with ballet presented the primary challenge of the redesign. To engage ballet newcomers, aficionados, and longtime subscribers alike, 415 created a design that draws on modern graphics and a simple, intuitive user interface that captures the excitement and energy of a San Francisco Ballet performance.

-- Incorporated both classical and modern elements to speak effectively to the diverse audience
-- Used bold fields of color and rich images of ballet performers on each page, resulting in a visual design that appeals to all audiences -- whether avant-garde or mainstream
-- Insured that every click translates the elegance, dramatic movement, and excitement of a San Francisco Ballet performance

Flash
Because energy, motion, and emotion were key components to the success of the design, 415 decided to use Flash to recreate online the impact of a San Francisco Ballet performance.

-- Developed a powerful, animated introduction to the site
-- Embedded Flash movies in static HTML on all subsequent pages to ensure that a sense of movement permeates the site
-- Composed original music for the introduction and spearheaded the production of original photography for use throughout the site

User Interface
415 also took steps to improve the usability of the site to allow every user -- whether savvy arts connoisseur or novice -- to use the site comfortably and efficiently.

-- Developed a navigation scheme that incorporates a judicious selection of top-level navigation choices, clear labeling, and internal linking between similar categories to allow site users to find desired information with ease
-- Reduced navigational headings from 14 to five, and added drop-down menus and a site map to enhance efficiency
-- Designed new task flow for tickets purchasing, enabling hassle-free ticket purchasing directly from the site (through an external ticket vendor) 24 hours a day
-- Created greater connectivity between site content and ticket purchasing capabilities

Content Management
Before the redesign, the San Francisco Ballet could update only casting, jobs, and press releases on their own; other content management necessitated the assistance of an outside vendor, which was time consuming and expensive. To insure simple, efficient maintenance of the site, 415 created a new content management system from the ground up; the Ballet can now handle content updates and changes without external help.

-- Partnered with Atomz, a leading provider of hosted Web site applications, and used Atomz Publish as foundation for site content management
-- Designed forms and templates to ensure simplicity and consistency of content management process
-- Implemented Atomz staging server, a user-controlled publishing feature with a license for multiple users

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