The Web gets Real
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The
New Media Emerges
Large Banking Site (6 mo.)
In 1982 Bank of America anchored publishing giant Times Mirror's Videotex Field Trial of consumer information services to the home with a huge site of consumer banking information.
In January of 1982 I was brought to Bank of America's headquarters offices in San Francisco to lead a 5-person production staff in the creation of a 2000+ page banking-oriented consumer information site for the Times Mirror Videotex Field Trial in southern California.
This information retrieval service was primarily textual information that was leveraged from existing informational brochures in the areas of:
- Travel
- Financial Services
- Banking (including branch location maps)
- Home services
- Consumer-Oriented Information
Because the service was primarily passive, much of my mandate was to spice the presentation up with illustrations and richly animated graphics.
I also also created high-end advertising pages for Bank of America consumer banking products.
Bank of America wanted to test the water for interactive online banking services, such as Bill Payment and Funds Transfer. I designed the layout and structure for their transactional screens, providing an attractive and understandable interface for what was at that time a "cutting edge" application.
As the consultant "interactive expert", my task was to create a manageable, easily updateable site. I designed a comprehensive sitewide stylesheet, set of templates and clip art, and developed a simple set of production techniques. I then trained my team of Bank of America employees to manage the process.
When I left san Francisco in May of 1982, Bank of America had:
An interactive site of over 2000 pages
A rudimentary transactional banking service
A suite of animated advertisements
A smoothly-operating content update and production system
As well as a trained staff who were now able to manage and update the site.
This was the first time I designed a complete comsumer interactive website, from staff training, through development process, stylesheets and portal management.
Overlays and color coding reduced transmission and display time (which were still a major issue at this early stage of the industry) and enhanced the customer's understanding of the site structure and navigation options. All the pages on the site had to be less than 2000 bytes (!)
Sorry about the unimpressive quality of the screenshots. Remember, it was early on in the industry - These images were captured by pointing a conventional photographic camera at the screen.
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