The Essex eBusiness Club is managed by Essex Chambers of Commerce in partnership with Business Link for Essex, East of England Development Agency and local partners, which include Essex County Council, Maldon District Council and Colchester Borough Council.

Brief
Essex eBusiness approached Momo to help with the development of their new website after the decommissioning of the national eBusiness Club website in favour of more localised support groups.

Working with a team of contributors, Momo's role was to provide the design and development of the website's front-end (screens). The new site was to sit on a content management system (CMS) provided by DataPartners, which presented some technical challenges to overcome.

We were also required to enhance the visibility and profile of the Rural eBusiness Club.

Approach
Momo assigned a dedicated web designer to the Essex eBusiness Club project, who liaised directly with DataPartners and Essex eBusiness.

The website needed to be user-friendly and display a lot of information in an easy-to-read manner. We wanted the homepage to work very much like the contents page of a magazine and display a synopsis of the entire website. This would allow users to scan-read the page, so that they can quickly find content that interests them and then drill-down into this info.

For the new website to work on the CMS, Momo needed to create page templates that utilised panels of information. These info-panels would be updated via the CMS allowing Essex eBusiness to keep the site current and up-to-date.

The design also needed to incorporate a masthead illustration commissioned from Draw4U. Along the lines of Google's themed artwork, this cartoon of Essex landmarks and icons will be updated throughout the year to reflect themes and seasonal events.

"We are very pleased that we invited Momo to work with us on the design of the new, very high profile Essex eBusiness website. They quickly understood our needs, worked collaboratively with other members of the project to deliver superb work, on time.

We have no hesitation in recommending Momo as they are professional in their service and the product they deliver."
Catherine Turner (Essex eBusiness Club Co-ordinator)

Results
The new design builds upon Essex eBusiness' success as being a valuable support resource to companies in Essex who wish to harness the Internet as a viable business channel.

It was important to address Essex eBusiness members and understand that there is likely to be a mix of IT ability and experience of using the Web. We also wanted to reflect the modernity of the Internet and present a stylish treatment of the site's content.

This has resulted in a clean, contemporary and easy-to-use site interface, with content being made easily available through a thoughtful page layout.

Content is presented in easy-to-read info-panels, that allow the user to quickly find and select useful information.

Momo delivered the finished website front-end as a series of HTML documents, CSS documents and web assets (graphics, buttons etc), which were then integrated into the content management system.

View the website: www.essexebusinessclub.co.uk
(Funding of the Essex eBusiness Club has since changed and unfortunately the website has been pulled).