SoftAd Group

Ford Worldwide Original Web Site Launch

The SoftAd Group brought Donya on board in May 1995 to help them design and develop a web site for their long-time client, Ford Motor Company. The idea was, in part, to re-purpose the content that SoftAd had already developed for the Ford Simulator, a CD-ROM that Ford distributes annually to market their vehicles.

Because the web site was to represent all of Ford and its subsidiaries (i.e. Ford Worldwide), not just the part that makes and sells automobiles, there was also the challenge of creating a somewhat distinct identity and presence for the other various divisions, while maintaining continuity in the user experience --throughout the site.


The first order of business was to establish the general structure and contents of the site, and then to develop a "showroom" area where the user could find model line summaries for all the latest Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln vehicles. The "showroom" area would naturally be the largest and most content-rich section of the site. All the requisite details for each model existed in an extensive database that is the engine behind Ford Simulator. Donya developed HTML templates for the model line summaries while UNIX programmer, Roger Rohrbacher, wrote a script to automate the feeding of the data into the templates, as well as a search engine that lets users enter their zip code to locate the dealers closest to them.

Once that process was well underway, Donya directed the design and development of the rest of the site, working with Ford to identify readily available and appropriate content for the other main topic areas. Her biggest challenge was finding practical and creative ways to break up and mark up large amounts of information, to make it as accessible to the reader as possible without making copy changes that would necessitate additional legal review and approval. Being so close to the content, it wasn't difficult for her to visualize the graphic elements that needed to be created to establish a corresponding "look and feel" for each of the different sections.

The site was developed over a 6 week period by a team of approximately 6 people and launched on July 1st. It was subsequently rated among the Top 1000 sites of the year by PC Magazine.



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