ICSA Labs Corporate Website
Corporate Site Prototype
ICSA Labs is a subsidiary of TruSecure, and is a major force in the security products industry. ICSA Labs certifies security products in a neutral environment, against criteria that is developed by a consortia of security vendors in that field.
The web in the primary vehicle of communication for the Labs. This is how they post reports on products, criteria that they are testing against, events, virus information, and consortia meeting information. Their site has been hand-coded and maintained by the Labs themselves, and they have been using the same design for over two years. It was time for a redesign.
The front page of ICSA Labs was designed to provide a stream of current information, while giving a nice branding element that presented itself fairly strongly.
Javascript pop-out menus were created as the primary and secondary navigational elements.
The bread-crumb for the was presented directly under the tertiary navigation. A separation of color provided enough of a difference to separate out the two sufficently.
Given the reporting nature of the information presented within this site, a printer-friendly format was developed. This was not completely neccessary, but people often expected to print what they saw on the screen. This was a reinforcement of that.
Due to the heavy reporting nature of the site, icons needed to be developed to address the formats of these reports.
Early in the discovery phase of the redesign, I found out each of the various technologies units within the Labs were pretty self-contained. Anti-Virus products really had nothing to do with Firewall products or criteria. But the information they produced was similiar in many ways. They need a site consisting of many similar sub-sites. This is the design process we followed in this redesign:
- Kickoff Meeting
- Requirements Gathering
- Clarification
- Requirements Buy-off
- Persona Creation
- Content Analysis
- Card Sorting
- Wireframing
- Labeling
- Wireframe buy-off
- Design mockups
- Prototyping
With each of the sub-sites, a separate series of cardsorting, wireframing and labeling was initiated. Once all of that data was compilated, commonalities were looked for. The other gaps in data was analyzed. In some instances, we moved towards a common ground across the technologies, and in other kept it separate due to business processes and reasons.
Boilerplate: TruSecure is the leading security intelligence and services provider, offering the only fully integrated enterprise risk management services on the market. TruSecure's unique blend of proactive risk reduction with real-time security management, monitoring and response assures continuous security of critical business information assets. TruSecure Certification has become a globally recognized symbol of commitment to effective information security in an interconnected economy. Additionally, TruSecure owns the independently operated ICSA Labs® and Information Security® magazine. Headquartered in Herndon, VA, TruSecure protects more than 700 sites worldwide, with operations in North America, Central America, Europe and Asia Pacific.