Inkchaser
Inkchaser is a San Francisco-based commercial printer, booking all of its sales through its web site.
The CEO engaged me to rethink the user interface for their
extensive and sophisticated price quote system. A short time into the project he asked me to come up with a new look for the rest of the site as well.
This project is emblematic of what I most like to do:
Making very high information density easy to read and deal with;
making a complicated task approachable;
and making a site look polished without too many embellishments.
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 Original home page design. Significant page real estate devoted to logging in and registering leaves users with the impression that they must register to get a quote, which they do not. Navigation to level 2 pages is embedded in long stretches of copy. |
 New home page. Most important links are enclosed in an eye-catching box at upper left; rotating banner ad is top center, followed by short & readable bullet points; exhaustive links to all information the user will need are provided at right, intercut with smaller promos to keep it interesting. |
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 Page 1 of get-a-quote task: original design. |
 Redesign: standard paper sizes are provided as shortcuts; ink and fold choices are illustrated with small images; explanatory copy is grouped with each choice; progress ("step 1 of 2") is made clear. |
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 Page 2 of get-a-quote task: original design. |
 Redesign: white box shows choices already made; blue buttons show next possible actions, either to go forward or back in the process; a red cancel button is an explicit way to bail out of the quoting task. |
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 Page 3 of get-a-quote task: original design. |
 Redesign: "Here's your quote" reinforces the purpose of this page; all next steps are well labeled, including "order now," talk to a customer support rep, or make changes to any choice previously made. |
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Even though a copyright notice is not required, here it is: Copyright © 2010 Leo Rigney.