Needs Assessment Form

We are currently not accepting new client projects that are less than $20,000.

Category Archive: Web Technology

The Liquor Mart Launch – just in time for the holidays!

Posted by    |   December 3rd, 2010   |   No responses

I'm proud to say that today we launched a new and drastically-improved website for a Boulder icon - Liquor Mart. The new custom-designed site uses a Magento-powered e-commerce system with all the bells and whistles:
  • a product catalog with more 12,000 SKUs with real-time inventory
  • reward points that are awarded for each purchase and can be redeemed for discounts
  • a slick delivery module that allows customers to schedule their package delivery
  • custom online coupons and case discounts calculated at checkout
  • special features including compare products, recommended products, product photo zoom and more.
The site also includes several new content sections such as Wine Wisdom, Brews News, Cocktail Corner, a blog called Simply Served, videos, audios, a party planning feature and more! And all of it can be managed by Liquor Mart staff through a password-protected CMS. I bought all the alcohol for tonight's Insight Designs holiday open house from liquormart.com -- ordering was a breeze, all the coupons worked, and the delivery showed up right on time. Check it out, and fill up on spirits for the holidays!
View Full Post
Insight Designs launches Crocs corporate website

Posted by    |   July 29th, 2010   |   No responses

Pardon us, but we at Insight Designs are having a hard time containing our excitement about the fact that we've added Crocs™ to our stellar client list. We just launched a new site for the Boulder-based shoemaker, most known for its colorful, hole-covered, lightweight boat shoes. We had a ton of fun working with this innovative and clever brand. In our custom design, we integrated both their Feel the Love™ campaign and their Croslite™ characters (personified versions of their trademark shoes) with a lively color palette and a look that is in keeping with the Crocs feel-good image. We handled all of the details, including the photo shoot to get unique full-body shots of the newly-anointed Crocs ambassadors, five lucky folks who get to blog to the world about their love for Crocs via the site's new Vitamin C blog. Thanks to photographer Rick Cummings (our friend and another Insight Designs client) for the awesome pix! On the backend, we set up multiple blogs and features, and we integrated the site seamlessly with two other vendors -- Taleo who handles the corporate careers search and Thomson Reuters who handles the investor relations content. In the process, we learned a lot about this revolutionary company. They've sold more than 100 million pairs of Crocs in their less than 10 years in business, and since 2007, they've donated more than 2.5 million pairs of shoes to people in impoverished areas as well as areas affected by natural disaster, including Haiti. And their styles go far beyond boat shoes and sandals. They offer more than 120 style for men, women and children. Check them out online. Or the next time you're in Boulder, stop by their new flagship store at 1129 Peart Street and then come by and say hi to Insight (our office is just a block away at 2006 Broadway)!
View Full Post
Gearing up for the Tour de France

Posted by    |   May 27th, 2010   |   No responses

Just five weeks to go before the start of the 97th Tour de France. And as usual, the programmers here at Insight Designs are busy helping code cool features for the Versus website and other yet-to-be-disclosed ways to follow the tour. Keep your eyes peeled. Don't miss the Versus Tour Tracker. Details below.
View Full Post
The Death of IE6?

Posted by    |   March 4th, 2010   |   No responses

Google dropped a bomb (albeit a relatively quite one) on Monday when they began their phase-out of support for Internet Explorer 6 and announced that YouTube will follow suit in a few weeks. For IE6 users this means that certain parts of these site won't work quite right, and you'll get a pesky pop-up from time-to-time reminding you to upgrade. For web developers, this (hopefully!) means that it's time to celebrate, because IE6 might finally be dead.

You see, IE6 is the grandfather of modern web browsers. Not the old, wise kind, though. More like the grumpy kind that yells at you to get off his lawn. It's an old fellow: it's been around for almost 8 years in a world where brand new technology becomes obsolete every day. This is the main cause for web powerhouses like Google to drop support for it: the latest-and-greatest web technologies simply don't work on old browsers, and trying to accommodate for this would only hold Google back.

One of the biggest challenges as web developers is trying to work around IE6's quirky and illogical behavior. Every website we create at Insight Designs is tested on no less than 8 different browsers including IE6, and IE6 is the one that single-handedly causes the most problems.  Because about 10% of all web surfing is done on IE6, though, it's impossible to ignore the old browser. But hopefully Google has the kind of clout to change this by strong-arming IE6 users into upgrading.

As if there weren't already a million reasons to make the switch (including speed, reliability, and security), maybe Google's announcement will finally convince the last handful of web surfers still clinging to this sinking browser to jump ship.

View Full Post
Live photos from our 2009 Holiday Open House

Posted by    |   December 4th, 2009   |   No responses

We do this every year and each time we try to come up with a new twist on automated photo uploading technology to deliver images in real time. We are shooting these images with a Canon 5D, which is transmitting images over FTP to my laptop in my office with a Canon WFT-E1 wireless transmitter. The files are stored in a folder on my HD, and this nifty little Python app called uploader.py checks the folder every minute and uploads files to our Flickr account. This year we've also found a nifty site called Flickr Slide Show that will take images from your Flickr account and turn them into a Flash photo gallery. [iframe http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?user_id=21695789@N08&tags=2009Holiday 600 500] And I give this a 50/50 chance of working, but here's out live Java cam... It uses a GoPro HD Helmet Hero camera and an Eye-Fi card: [iframe http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?user_id=21695789@N08&tags=Java 600 500] Or if you'd prefer you can view these images directly on Flickr here. Enjoy!
View Full Post