news : in the spotlight

Wireless 2009 Site Offers Interactive Features

New Target’s client CTIA, The Wireless Association, recently unveiled several interactive features on CTIA’s new site in support of their Spring trade show, Wireless 2009.  The Wireless 2009 site (www.ctiawireless.com) promotes this critical trade event and educates site visitors about the breadth of topics covered by the show as well as who will be attending.

One of CTIA’s goals with this site was to provide information and resources in a way that is intuitive and easy to use.  CTIA took user feedback about other shows’ sites and heard, loud and clear, that users need help if they are to maximize their use of such sites.  CTIA responded by asking New Target to develop several interactive tools, including the following:

• Interactive Show Site Floorplan
• VISA Invitation Letter
• Multiple Language versions of site content

The Interactive Show Site Floorplan is a centerpiece of CTIA’s site.  CTIA wanted to give visitors to the web site an immersive and clear explanation of what features can be found where on the show floor.  The Floorplan features a legend that calls out specific areas of interest.  Rolling our mouse over a given area changes the display and reveals the name of the area.  Clicking on that area prompts a brief description to show, and then users may click through to find more detailed information or to register for the show and for specific activities during the show.  The Floorplan is a highly engaging way to visually display the variety of information about the trade show in a compelling and engaging fashion.

The VISA Invitation Letter lets web site visitors from outside of the United States self-serve while also reducing the workload for CTIA staff.  Prospective visitors to the show who come from outside the US generally need VISAs in order to enter the country.  Before, visitors had to write to CTIA, provide all of their information, and have CTIA staff manually create and send a VISA Invitation Letter for use in securing entry into the country.  New Target enabled a self-serve form on the show site that lets users instantly produce a complete VISA Invitation Letter after they fill out a simple online form.  Site visitors get instant results and CTIA staff is freed up to spend time in more productive ways.

In order to accommodate the growing international aspect of this show, CTIA wanted to provide cues in the design that welcomed international visitors.  New Target addressed this in the design and the functionality by providing links on every page, homepage included, to translated versions of the site in ten other languages (aside from English).  This helps engage international visitors from the homepage onward, and it always provides easy access to site content in 11 different languages overall.