Client: Citigroup^® Global Transaction Services - Cash Management and Trade
Category: Web Application Development, Site Optimization, Flash and Shockwave, Software Engineering

Overview:
Citigroup^® Global Transaction Services - Cash Management and Trade ( GTS C&T) is a leader in global transactions for multinational corporations, with their financial networks and operations systems processing over $1 trillion in transactions daily for clients around the world.

In the spring of 2002, the GTS C&T team identified a growing need to update their external Web site, which had outgrown its design in only one year's time.

The Problem:
The Citigroup C&T site administrators identified several critical problems with their Web site at the beginning of their redesign project:

• Their Web site had been build using static HTML, which normally required long hours of manual work when updating global site branding and content elements such as global navigation buttons
• The site had a large number of over sized and outdated graphics that caused unnecessarily long download times for uses with slow Internet connections. With a large majority of users in Europe and Asia using these connections, the site was difficult for those users to visit.
• It lacked intuitive navigation causing users had to perform several clicks to get to and from their desired content.
• Outdated cascading menus that did not function well
• Repetitive code that was written on almost every page of the site
• A confusing Information Architecture
• Large numbers of unnecessary long pages
• Client side form validation was time intensive and required and required large amounts of manual work

The Challenge:
An updated version of the Citigroup C&T web site posed the following challenges:

• The need to reuse common page elements and code wherever possible
• Include new dynamic components
• Reduce the file size of graphics without sacrificing the site's overall visual design
• Increase usability and navigation
• Improve download times
• Make the site more accessible and visible to Search Engines
• Streamline HTML form development and client-side form validation

The solution:
Working with designs and graphic elements provided by a third-party vendor, Aeolian Digital started from scratch in building the new version of the Web site. The following solutions were implemented:

• Created a standard library of JavaScript functionality and specified coding conventions with which to dynamically build and manage functionality, streamline form validation, eliminate code repetition and reduce page sizes
• Improved navigation through the implementation of a custom breadcrumb trail and improved third-party cascading menus.
• Interfaced with a proprietary Citigroup database application to add dynamic data functionality
• Implemented data driven JSP pages that helped to streamline the display and maintenance of the company's long lists of solutions and country profiles.
• Optimized image dimensions and file sizes to improve download times for users with slow connections.