So you’ve decided to redesign your website…

It’s a competitive world out there, with many qualified web development companies fighting for your business. Even if you limit the options to the Washington, DC area, there is a wide range of talented and experienced options—many firms these days provide excellent website design and development services. Washington, DC, along with northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, has been fertile ground for the growth of technology and marketing companies.

How do you know which one is right for you?

A common and successful method for selecting the right company typically entails releasing an RFP which details the requirements for the web project. This RFP would go out to about five pre-evaluated companies who you’ve prescreened as qualified to take on the project. Once you have received responses in the form of well documented proposals, narrow the selection down using the criteria most important to you. … »

Our recent American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages website project was pretty impressive. So impressive, we had to post all the beautiful, technical details on the Drupal.org website as a case study.

This detailed overview of the intricate ACTFL website focuses on a few key aspects of the project:

• the reason we chose Drupal as our CMS,
• the large migration effort involved in building the new website,
• and the many integrations between Drupal and ACTFL third-parties.

We are hoping to provide some ideas for other developers looking to take on a project this complex and we are curious to hear what others in the Drupal community think about the work, and…  honestly, we just wanted to show off our impressive web team. So hop on over to Drupal’s site and let us know what you think!

You can read the case study here: http://drupal.org/node/1853280

Associations today are looking for new ways to provide member services that will engage current members and continue to attract new members. With the increase in use of mobile devices, we are seeing an increase in the development of mobile websites by associations for the purpose of connecting with members.

Mobile data traffic more than doubled in 2011, and with expectations that mobile data traffic will double again in 2012 (source: Cisco), we thought it would be helpful to detail a few mobile feature and content recommendations based on what we’re seeing in mobile web development for associations.

• News
  Start with the content your users consider most valuable. Many times that is a “News and Announcements” section. One of our clients identified real-time FTSE stock index value as high value content for visitors to their site, so when they developed a mobile version of the site, they not … »

New Target is pleased to announce the successful launch of EdgeBio’s new Drupal website, www.edgebio.com!

EdgeBio is an established research reagents company providing high-quality nucleic acid purification products to the scientific research community. EdgeBio is the leader in bioinformatics and other analytical services – even being chosen to judge the next X Prize winner!

From our initial discussions with EdgeBio through the execution of the project, we worked toward establishing a strong web platform that could be built upon as the company continues to grow. This began with creating an easily extensible design and was carried out through the implementation of a robust Drupal content management system.

Additional project objectives included: … »

For the past 10 years, First Night Alexandria has been producing a family-friendly, “walkable” New Year’s Eve event—a festival of performances including music, dance, magic shows, face painting, and more held at different venues throughout the Old Town district of Alexandria.

The event has seen sporadic growth during the past decade and its annual success is highly weather-dependent with potential attendees waiting to see the weather forecast for New Year’s Eve before purchasing tickets. Since the majority of ticket sales occur during the 2 days before the event, extreme cold or precipitation can prove disastrous to entire event’s ticket sales. This creates a challenge for First Night to sell tickets earlier in the season and insulate their budget from inclement weather. Another challenge has been how to continue to provide ticket sales online, through the night of the event, given some of First Night’s logistics with “badge” or ticket pick-up and the dozens of pick-up locations. First Night continually looks for ways to face these two major challenges. … »