API Network Corp

NSSSB.COM is a family law firm with offices in Ann Arbor and Brighton, Michigan.  They help families resolve legal issues related to divorce and post-divorce, child custody, child support and spousal support, separation, financial disputes between couples.   We have chosen them only because they are a local business using Joomla as their base website technology.  This is not a review of their business, their attorneys but simply a quick overview of how they implemented Joomla 1.5.

Home Page
In the center of their home page they have a flash-based image rotator that is a very slick Joomla componet called Morfeoshow.  After a two minute visit to their site, this is now something I want to try.   Very well done, very pro.  What I wasn't crazy about in the NSSSB site was that clicking the image only moved you to the next one.   Not sure how an auto-rotating set of images is any better than just randomizing still JPGs with each page load.   Based on what morfeoshow appears to offer, and if auto-rotating is a requirement, I would prefer to see each image linked to a content-specific page. 

I noticed that a home page image was reused on an inner page.   Would be better to get something specific for each page.  

Resources - PDF Downloads
Behind their Resources page, they used a single article to publish a list of PDFs rather than using native Joomla Weblinks.  That's fine if there is no desire to keep track of how popular the links are or if the Resource page isn't going to change often.   If there is a need to update links/documents, it's a better choice to use the Joomla native Weblinks component.  Same thing goes for Helpful Links -- if there is a plan to add/update the list.

Contact Us
Instead of using native Joomla contact forms, NSSSB went with a compact Contact Us version that is a left-positioned module, powered by something called formprocess.php. Guessing this sends to an central email address, which in a law office would make more sense then giving each attorney their own contact form.

Room for improvement: The developer skipped validation.   You can go to the form, enter nothing more than the anti-spam code and click Send.  To this you will get a "Thank you. Your contact request has been submitted."

The upside: The captcha code changes on each page refresh so at least spambots will not be able to attack.   The downside.  If a valid potential client does not include an email address, there's no way to respond.    There are many module-based Joomla-ready contact forms.   Might be better to consider one of those.

The very good part: They went with a simple form rather than some legal websites that make you fill out a dozen fields to get some follow-up.

Template
I would have preferred to see rotating images in the background of the header, rather than using images for the firm name and phone numbers.   Also, randomizing in the header is a good place to visually broadcast community branding and local events.   e.g.,  During the UofM football season, blend in a few football images.   The template used is generically pleasing and validates reasonably well for CSS/HTML, meaning that most browsers will display it correctly.

The NSSSB site was delivered in part by themodernfirm.com

Summary

At the Joomla-level, not much to change.   Nit-picking about what a click does on the image rotator isn't worth all that much.  It's a clean site that provides on-topic information about what they do, what they've done and what others think about them.   Their SE stats (shown left) could use some TLC, so if I were in charge of their web efforts, I would prescribe some social networking to up those numbers.

If you notice a Joomla-based website in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, please drop us a note so we can consider them for inclusion here.