Zimma Web Development

A ‘new media’ agency based in London needed a Content Management System (CMS) for their client websites and asked Zimma to develop it. Having already developed a CMS for my own clients I knew the complications and potential pitfalls.

In order to make a good CMS it must meet the following points:

Easy to use.
The point of a CMS is to allow anyone to update a website.

Cope with various types of websites.
All websites are different so designing a CMS with just one site in mind would not work.

Cope with various types of content.
A website can be the container for many types of content so a CMS must be able to adapt in order to handle it.

Be extensible.
Web technology and website styles move fast. A good CMS must be easily extendible to last any time.

The final system meets all these points and has since been integrated in to many sites. Other essential features included in the system are a PDF generator (allowing users to generate PDFs from templates), a file manager to organise uploaded files and images, the ability to preview any content posts before publishing as well as being able to roll back to any content post in the past.

“The CMS system Zimma built is robust, flexible, reliable and extensible. The project was delivered on time and to budget. We are very happy with the final system. Zimma provided excellent support during the first months of operation.”

Agency Director

TheTicketSellers.co.uk is an online ticket agency. Their online presence has grown tremendously since the first version of website in 2006 and sells tickets for a wide range of events from Drum & Bass Arena to Moseley Folk Festival.

The people at TheTicketSellers are always willing to incorporate new ideas and technology to make sure the customers and promoters that use their services are always very happy.

This website is much more than a website and is probably better descibed as a system. I’m going to break it down into the three types of user so you can a better idea of what I have built for them.

CUSTOMERS - The people who buy the tickets

TheTicketSellers site makes it very simple for customers to purchase tickets. Here are a few of the best features:

• Predictive search feature which suggests events as you type
• SMS e-ticket delivery. Customers can have their e-tickets sent to their mobile by text message.
• Customer account area where customers can log in check delivery status on their open orders and check past orders.

PROMOTERS - The people who have the tickets to sell

Promoters have their login area of the site where they can

• add new events
• manage their existing events
• check on ticket sales
• check graphical statistics about their customers
• print out their e-ticket doorlist at the end of the event
• create links and buttons for their events
• update their public profile and payment preferences

STAFF - The people who sell the tickets

TheTicketSellers also have a 24 hour phone line and all orders taken over the phone are made through a staff control panel. This control panel also allows the staff to manage

• user accounts
• past orders
• venues and events
• invoice generation
• paper ticket postage
• banner adverts

VCA Technology develop intelligent video analysis software that extracts business value from any CCTV installation. Zimma helped out with their website, branding and logo.

Many logo design ideas were developed which incorporated a security camera / video surveillance theme. You can see some of these ideas and the final logo below. Everybody was pleased with the final logo and, using this as a base, the website design followed naturally.

The website needed to explain a bit about the company and demonstrate their software. This website uses an embedded media player to show off how their technology works. See the the home page for an example.

“I am very pleased with Zimma’s work and the resulting www.vcatechnology.com web site. I found Zimma staff to be helpful and cooperative at all times and I appreciated the additional effort in the final stages that resulted in the web site going live exactly on schedule.”
Geoff Thiel, CEO, VCA Technology Ltd

Zimma have rebuilt the Making Short Films website to accompany the latest version of the best seller text book Making Short Films by Clifford Thurlow. I really like this clean and fresh looking design and think it really appeals to the primary user - media students. As with all websites it’s important it performs well in Google so that when people search for Making Short Films they end up here. Web User magazine featured this in their best new websites section in March 2008.

Navyroof.com Ltd. (UK) is an independent property investment company and approached Zimma to build their online presence. They needed a professional website they could they could manage themselves. The site has now been online since March 2008 and is currently undergoing further development to cope with their growth. Click the tumbnail to view their website.

Times are busy at the new Zimma HQ and I haven’t managed to update the portfolio with all the exciting projects I’ve been up to over the last few months. So welcome to the official Zimma blog. This will be kept up to date with all the web development and design work I get up to.