Build in Motion v3
After a 4 years of our v2 website, a website refresh was due. The new website features a more modern design, client testimonials, is more SEO-friendly and targets a nationwide audience instead of just local.
I discovered my passion for digital design and technology in 1995 just as the internet started to become a thing, building my first websites on GeoCities and then graduating to building dot-coms beginning with a company I ran out of my college dorm room. After college, I developed e-commerce systems at Kennametal, intranets, custom applications and collaboration systems at Vocollect, ran the design technologies department at agency Vance Wright Adams, and then led project strategies at digital marketing firm Pipitone Group. I am currently the Director of User Experience at software development agency, Build in Motion. Overall, I've contributed to hundreds of web and mobile applications through strategy, design and development. Samples of my work are available in the project timeline below.
Phone : +1 412-400-2934
Email : alan@waldroninteractive.com
Website : www.alanwaldron.com
Address : 342 Iris Dr., Pittsburgh, PA 15235
After a 4 years of our v2 website, a website refresh was due. The new website features a more modern design, client testimonials, is more SEO-friendly and targets a nationwide audience instead of just local.
Insulwise needed software that would allow their salespeople to quickly and easily create contracts while at a potential client's home. The InsulPro app developed by Build in Motion provides online and offline functionality that works on Windows and Mac and gives salespeople the information they need to diagnose problems in a home's insulation, explain the solutions to the homeowner, and create a contract to complete the work. Work scopes are managed in a web-based admin panel and sync'd to the desktop app, and contracts generated by the app are sync'd to a cloud server.
Accomods is an interactive, user-friendly application that guides the development of appropriate, specially designed instruction for students with special needs. Users walk through a step-by-step process where they specify a student's strengths and needs. Those attributes are then weighted and a list of appropriate accomodations and modifications (Accomods) are returned. These plans can be downloaded as a PDF and distributed to parents, teachers and administrators.
Woodbed Corp is a supplier of wood fiber products like mulch, wood chips and firewood serving Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. Anticipating delivery times is important to Woodbed's customers and was the focus of the mobile app. With the new Woodbed app, customers can view thier upcoming orders, status of their current order, and even track the location of the truck delivering their while displaying the estimated arrival time. And when it's time to order more product, they can do that in the app as well.
Initially, Build in Motion was asked to make some recommendations on how to enhance the existing Steel City Men's Clinic website. After some design work aimed at streamlining the website experience, SCMC asked Build in Motion to tackle other design projects including a tri-fold brochure and a design for a van wrap.
TEN has been a long-time client for Build in Motion. After their acquisition by Duquesne Light, the company rebranded and needed a website to match. The design was created by Actual Size marketing agency, and I was tasked with developing the site.
Design and development of a simple website to allow author Gary Lyon Otto to sell his books
WVMetroNews is West Virginia's only news, talk and sports network. The WVMetroNews website features all the latest news and sports, live original programming that is simulcast on the website and radio, live video streams of important government meetings and high school / college sporting events, and even original podcasts covering a variety of topics. The site also features a live scoreboard showing up-to-the-minute scores for all West Virginia high school football games.
Swarovski Lighting needed an app developer for thier new line of Infinite Aura lighing fixtures. The fixtures feature two lights, an outer ring light and an inner crystal light and Swarovski required that their brightness and warmth to be controlled by mobile app. They chose Build in Motion to make it happen. The Infinite Aura mobile app allows users to not only connect to and control the fixtures, but group fixtures together to adjust them simultaneously. Additionally, a set of lighting animation effects are also available to select.
ProGo is an on-demand delivery service that features Henry, a lovable gopher character that will get whatever you need, whenever you need it. Through the app, users can schedule pick-up service to deliver anything in the same day or schedule future service. Users can also request to be picked up to assist with the delivery. A low-tech version of ProGo is currently in service in Deleware while the app is currently in development.
Scoobi is a new on-demand electric scooter rental company coming to Pittsburgh and they needed a website that would promote the new service and educate users on how to get started.
Scoobi is an on-demand electric scooter rental service launching in summer 2018. With 150 electric scooters to be placed over Downtown and the East End regions, Scoobi needed an app that was fast, intuitive and secure. With the Scoobi app, you can either reserve a scooter for future use, or if you're in front of a scooter, you can simply scan & go.
BigStxr (pronounced Big Star) is a ticketing portal that allows active military personnel and veterans verify their status through an ID.me authentication portal and by doing so, unlocks redemption codes that they can use to secure free or discounted tickets to events on participating websites.
Empire Music is an online guitar shop that sells high-end guitars. Many of the clients' customers are driven to buy through high-resolution photography and they wanted a product page that really featured the photography. Armed with that knowledge, I created a product page where product info is secondary to photography. This page will be a custom template to Build in Motion's Swift e-commerce platform.
Former client, Innovative Autoworks, returned to me in 2017 looking for a redesign of the site we build in 2011 at Vance Wright Adams. This design is much more mobile-friendly, and better highlights IAW's stellar craftsmanship as well as their everyday services.
In the fall of 2017, I created a series of mockups to help custom t-shirt printing company, Clockwise, improve their end-to-end customer experience across desktop, mobile and email. UX design included the introduction and education process, along with end-to-end order customization and customer support, including enhanced order histories, 1-click reordering, inventory management with an online sales portal for designers.
While the first version of the TLC mobile app looked and functioned great, we learned that users still needed some help understanding how to get set up to use TLC and also how to manage their laundry through the wash process. Taking that feedback, we redesigned the primary screen to provide a better onboarding experience and present clear information to the users regarding the status of their wash and any actions they must take.
After a successful pilot year at the University of Pittsburgh, The Laundry Chute was ready to go all-in and that included a complete overhaul of all systems. We redesigned the mobile app, the website, the iPad app, and even helped in the construction of all new locker system. With renewed marketing initiatives we're confident that TLC is poised to become an extremely successful company.
Build in Motion offers a complete e-commerce solution called Swift. The web interface of that platform was developed several years ago and was in desperate need of an update. We worked with Whittaker Guns to build the best mobile shopping experience and increase mobile sales and provide a quality shopping experience on every device.
UPMC had developed a new Thyroid Cancer test that was more accurate than others and was in need of a website to help doctors and patients understand what the test is, how it works, and when it is necessary. As a joint venture between UPMC and CBL Path, we were required to design hybrid branding. The site also allows doctors and patients to ask questions which are then routed to appropriate personnel.
Boston Sports Journal was the first spin-off project from Dejan Kovacevic's wildly popular and successful premium content website, DKPittsburghSports.com. On this project, I borrowed a lot of the architecture from DK's site but worked closely with the client on logo design, app design, training on the content management system and simply digital strategy. In under 3 months, BSJ has registered over 6000 paying subscribers.
FedEx was in need of an upgrade to a legacy application used to audit damage to products in the warehouse. In the warehouse, minimizing the number or damaged goods is paramount. Build in Motion developed an application designed for ease-of-use in the toughest of condition's to help FedEx's warehouse customers monitor and eliminate product damage.
When RJM Wireless contacted me for a new website, their existing website looked like it hadn't been touched since 1999. They wanted a new, fresher look that would help attract bright young engineers to their firm. RJM's firm gets contracted out by the big wireless companies to be the real "Can you hear me now?" guys. But they do much more than that. Check them out!
After a year and a half of the old website, that didn't explain much about us other than the fact we built software, it was time to show the world what kind of stuff we actually do at Build in Motion. The new website features a work portfolio and information about our product offerings, Swift and Catalyst, and portrays the company in a more professional manner.
DK Pittsburgh Sports is the first independent sports journalism outfit in the country to run a business based primarily on user subscriptions. After 3 years, DK needed new apps and fast. Within 6 weeks of contacting us, Build in Motion built brand new native iOS and Android apps with authentication integrated into his existing Wordpress system.
Block 292 is a new dining concept located in Mt. Lebanon that infuses three services, a Butcher Shop, Market and Dine-In Restaurant. The site was designed to be light and airy, matching the decor of the brick-and-mortar location. I don't believe I've built a website that was as meticulously built for responsive / adaptive layouts to ensure it looks perfect on every device. Additionally, the site features a mobile interface to display pertinent details for on-the-go users.
After downloading numerous mobile apps that I thought would be useful tools to help my daughter learn her mental math, I found that most were comprised of silly games whose novelty wore off quickly and lost the notion of actual learning by repetition. So I developed my own math app that is appropriate for all ages, and can be customized to grow with your student.
The Efficiency Network, TEN, wanted to distinguish it's municipal street lighting and smart city services into a separate entity so we created a separate website for TEN Connected Solutions. The site features an informative video and content targeted to government agencies.
With a new app and a new market, the Laundry Chute decided it was time to redesign their website. Collaborating on creative with a marketing agency, I converted their proposed campaign into a fun, interactive website that clearly outlines TLC's vision and process.
ADP needed developers that could join the team and make an immediate impact. Build in Motion sent a team of skilled developers to help out. Several builders on our team worked on-site and remotely for months to help ADP deliver a stable product in time for their customer's open enrollment periods. Specifically, I contributed a lot the the design of some portions of the application, and also worked a lot on the front-end development.
UX/UI design for an application that manages pickup and delivery laundry services for students on college campuses. This was a challenging but fun project to work on due to the complex workflow involved in the process from start to finish. Great app for a great client!
The Efficiency Network, a.k.a. TEN, is a company that we're doing a lot of software development for at Build in Motion. The client was interested in streamlining their website by removing much of the content that was superfluous and creating a one-click deep website. After sending me their requirements, I reformatted their website and turned around a finished product within 24 working hours.
I began working at Build in Motion in July 2015 and immediately got to work rebranding the company with a new logo, color palette, website, and print materials. The website was built using AngularJS and was integrated into the company's proprietary inMotion application platform.
Born out of my experience building ImaginePittsburgh.com, ThisIsPennHills.com leverages many of the same concepts including news, careers, neighbors, and a wiki-style object grid. The site was built to help foster better communication and a greater sense if community pride.
The John Challis Courage for Life Foundation The Courage for Life Foundation grants life encouraging sports experiences to high school athletes with life threatening illnesses. This website is built in WordPress and includes an e-commerce plugin that drives the merchandise store and registrations for the annual golf outing.
I've been working with Heinz the past few years to help them define a talent brand that will help attract and retain employees. Due to organizational changes at Heinz over that span, it was a difficult time to start such a project. We were however, able to get this website completed prior to the merger with Kraft.
Commet is a mobile application that is a long time in the making. I think me and a friend first brainstormed the idea back in 2009. The project has stopped and started, gone though several development teams, but now finally I believe I have the right team and partners in place to launch it and soon!!
IDeATe is a program at Carnegie Mellon University that allows students to take courses and labs that span the university curriculum. Students can team up with designers, developers, writers, graphic artists and even theater majors to create new and innovative projects. This was the first client project I used the Concrete5 content management system.
One one thinks about exciting web development projects, synthetic paper isn't the subject matter that typically comes to mind. But this wonder-material is used in and on everything from passports, to driver's licenses, chemical barrels, food labels and more! The project was actually quite complex with many pages and interesting layouts. Plus, the client was awesome to work with.
In 2014, a friend of the family decided to run for Magisterial District Judge. Being a candidate on a budget, I built a quick website using a ThemeForest template in the Concrete5 content management system for easy maintenance. John won the Republican nomination for the seat, and the general election is in November. Good luck John!
When Butler Health System was in need of a new website for their FasterCare urgent care facilities, they called Pipitone Group and I was on the job. The first priority for the client was to provide phone and location information for users. Through an intelligent responsive design, we satisfied both desktop and mobile users getting them the information they need fast.
DJ Fifth Ace, or Dan Koch, has been a friend of mine since we both worked at the same night club around the turn of the century, when he became one of Waldron Interactive's first clients. As we've grown professionally, so has Dan's services. His new website needed to portray professionalism with some fun. The site also features a customer management system used for bookings, contracts, payments and client preferences.
Murray Guard is a privately-held security services organization that needed a website redesign to accompany their new brand. I worked closely with the client to arrive at a design that the management and employees could be proud of and potential clients could easily navigate to find all of Murray Guard's services and contact the company to hire security personnel.
In July 2013, I met without a doubt, the most interesting person I've ever met in my life. Randy Gilson is the creator of Randyland, a public art gallery located in the Northside, and Randy's home. In 2014, I built Randy a simple site on Tumblr, and got him set up on social media sites Twitter, Facebook and Instagram so he could share all of his creativity online. Additionally, we launched a Kickstarter campaign and successfully raised over $12,000 to fund an art installation.
AIME is an acronym for Access to Interprofessional Mental Health Education. The job was referred to me from a designer friend who created the logo and some other design assets for the project. The site was built in Wordpress because the administrators of the site were not happy with the university's CMS.
TeamPay.co is an application that allows teams in sports leagues to manage their league fees and equally split payments between players. Additional fees can also be tacked on for referee costs or equipment and jerseys. The service is free for team managers and payments are deposited into their accounts weekly.
The Proper Brick Oven and Tap Room is a new artisan pizza restaurant in the heart of Pittsburgh's cultural district. The website was designed by friend and former colleague, Rob Price, and I was hired to build it. The responsive 1-page website is a valuable feature for the restaurant whose traffic is comprised of more than 60% mobile devices.
ImaginePittsburgh.com is a project of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. The goal of the website is to attract mid-career talent from other cities to fill the growing job market in the Pittsburgh 11-county region. The site allows users to explore Pittsburgh in live, work, play and learn categories, and search a database of over 20,000 jobs.
The Pennsylvania Brain & Spine Institute was the first project I worked on for Highmark / Allegheny Health Network. The client had recently onboarded two of the top brain and spine surgeons in the country and needed a new brand and website to promote them. In addition, we created a library filled with knowledge on brain and spine disorders and treatments, providing a great source for SEO.
The Superalloy Committee of the Specialty Steel Industry of North America is a voluntary trade association representing producers of high performance alloys in North America. They do things like track sales trends and topics related to the industry such as trade agreements and law, and probably even do some lobbying on behalf of their member companies. It was a fun little site to build with a patriotic design.
WalkPittsburgh.org is a project of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Oakland Transportation Management Association and the Airport Corridor Transportation Association. The goal of the project is to promote walking as an alternative commuting method in Pittsburgh. In addition to the website, I designed a pedometer mobile app that will allow people to track steps and report walking metrics back to the website.
PizzaRev is a California-based fast-casual pizza restaurant. Basically Chipotle for pizza. After their initial store proved to be a great success, PizzaRev prepared for expansion with a new website, and a new brand identity provided by Vance Wright Adams. People loved sharing their pizza creations on Instagram, so we turned that into a feature of the website.
The Directory of Design and Marketing was an application I built with a friend as an attempt to make some fast cash selling SEO to marketing agencies. This project taught us a valuable lesson, just because you build it, doesn't mean anyone will come. In other words, customer acquisition was much more difficult than anticipated!
During my time at the Penn Hills CDC, we operated the Penn Hebron Garden Club, using it as a home-base and also managing rentals. I built a quick and easy website for the club to support events and rentals.
One of the more memorable projects in my career was building two trade show attractions for mining safety company, Jennmar. Jennmar needed unique ideas to bring people into their booth, and our solution was to build a custom Dig Dug arcade game branded with JennMar logos and slogans along with a slots machine kiosk with custom icons on the spinners. The slots game had a USB button that when pressed, would trigger a jackpot for a valued client. It was a project that got me out of the office and assembling arcade cabinets in a warehouse.
I spent two years with the Penn Hills Community Development Corporation between 2012 and 2013. During that time I created a new logo and brand for the organization, a new website, and many print materials. As chair of the communications committee, I published a bi-weekly email newsletter and performed outreach via social media. I even spent some time as a board member.
Caveman Fuel was a company that sold paleo diet approved products such as beef jerky and coffee creamer. I think the plan was to expand the brand into a wide range of products, but despite a killer logo and brand designed by Gino at VWA, it never really sold a lot of product. It was a very high-end product and pretty pricy for beef jerky.
They say the hardest website to build is your own. And that was absolutely the case for Vance Wright Adams. After numerous design concepts, and even a possible rebranding of the company - we, in the end, produced a professional website indicative of the work we created at VWA. Even if it wasn't blue.
As a hockey player, I was pretty excited about this project. Synthetic ice could allow ice hockey players to skate in more rinks, any time of year, indoor or outdoor. I designed a site that reflected the colors and textures of a hockey rink, with bold calls-to-action for pricing and contact cues. And I did get to skate on it several times at demos for my client, which was a lot of fun.
This was a great website project for a customer who truly put an emphasis on green initiatives. Heinz not only saw the environmental benefits to sustainability projects, but also knew they would impact the bottom line - in a good way! This project published all of the ways Heinz reduced waste in their organization with great infographics and rich media.
Innovative Autoworks is a creative company that does incredible custom fabrication work on cars, trucks and other motorized vehicles. I can't even pretend to know what I'm writing here because I'm a total nerd, and in no way a gear head. But the stuff they do is shiny and cool.
Vermont Highland Cattle was one of my first clients at Vance Wright Adams. It got off to a rocky start as I misspelled the client's last name numerous times in a press release due to an aggressive spell checker in my IDE. We made it through that though and over the next few years kept improving on the site, primarily their custom shopping cart system built in the PHP framework, CodeIgniter.
Contracted with RA Snoznik custom home builders in 2011 to design and develop a new website. The website was colorful and featured an interesting, uncommon layout. However, it was built and launched just before responsive website design debuted, and the website had to be rebuilt within a couple years to display properly on mobile devices.
I contracted with JLM Pacific Epoch for roughly 2 years. They maintained a database of all companies and executives operating in China. The database was a complete mess so my role was to take all of that data and make it something that people could read, browse, and click around in. They're plan was to sell U.S. businesspeople access to this database. I eventually handed the project off to a full-time employee they hired.
I'm can't even remember how I managed to get the Andy Russell Charitable Foundation as a client, but it was many years ago as this was the second iteration of website! The organization simply needed a website to promote their annual golf outing and publish all of the great auction items for each year's event.
HPW Associates needed a clean website design to promote their business consulting services. I created a nice looking site on Wordpress so they could manage it on their own. I'm still not 100% sure what they do, I know it has something to do with business performance measurement and analytics. But they're happy with their site!
I began working with ProTech back in 2007 when the company really needed some help with their online presence, particularly the brand presence on their website and access to search courses. Forced to work with nightly data exports from an archaic FoxPro database, we created a website that was able to publish all scheduled courses in all cities and allow interested students to register an account and sign up for courses.
Somehow I was put in touch with some realtors in 2007 that were looking to get their own website and promote their properties. RindyBliss.com was one of my first sites to rather seamlessly integrate into another website, the RE/Max realty listings, which back then meant using frames. But even then, I was insistent that the site look cohesive from a design standpoint and designed Rindy's site to share many UI aspects from the RE/Max listings.
Mac-1 Construction is a home builder in Arizona. Don't remember how I got this job, I hardly remember even doing it. But there it is. And the same website I built in 2007 is running today, so I guess that says something about how happy they were with my work. Even though I don't think I've spoken to them since.
Between 2004 and 2011, I worked at Vocollect as the in-house intranet manager. And so during that time, I had the opportunity to design and develop my own intranet and content management system in PHP and MySQL. Authentication tied in to Active Directory, and features included message boards, events, employee profiles, page hierarchies, HR forms, events & education registrations, featured employees, and much more. It was such a complete product I had considered reselling it to other companies under the name Intrabreeze.
While living in the Holiday Park Apartments after graduation, I bartered a membership from the health club down the road in exchange for developing and maintaining a website for them. It was a nice little gym with racquetball courts - which is super fun if you've never played. The gym has since closed.
During my two years as an in-house developer at Kennametal, I was given the opportunity to redesign and rebuild the website for the Kennametal Industrial Product Group. Lots of text and drill bits. Not a particularly glamourous subject matter, but noble work nonetheless. And hey, it was 2003 and I had a job. Go me!
Kennametal was my first job out of college and I learned a lot about corporate life during my time there, namely that I dont' like corporate life. But aside from that, I learned a lot. I was part of a team that created on e-commerce portal that had over 300,000 products, worked with marketing team to transform their print materials into web, and was also allowed to redesign the corporate site to this sweet blue and yellow table-based layout design. Sorry the screen shot is all I could get from archive.org.
The Big Dog Dart League was my second client, and I created the site and also managed schedules and rosters. But my favorite part of this site was the Big Dog logo that I created, a cigar smoking strongman bulldog. It was the first time I thought I might have some actual design chops. Even 20 years later, I still see that logo on vending machines around Pittsburgh and it makes me happy every time.
In 2000, a few friends of mine formed a girl-pop band named Trilogy in the mold of Destiny's Child and recorded a demo, and I built them a website for free because I was 20 and they were girls. The band was short-lived, I don't think it made it through the summer but I did date one of the girls for a couple months. Though it was the first time I used Photoshop to make a logo, so there's that!
National Sports Challenge was my first paid client job. I was 19 years old and I was paid about $250 to build it. NSC was a Madden 2000 tournament, E-sports way ahead of its time. Not only did I build the website, but I helped the guy running it to set up 64 40-inch CRT TVs and Playstations in a hotel conference room. Despite widespread radio ads, turout was much lower than expected. But to just have someone pay me to build a website was exciting.
In 1997, me and a friend launched the WWF Action Zone, a website dedicated to covering the WWF pro wrestling and it became an instant success. Within a year we relaunched the site as Top-Rope.com and continued to run the site for 4 years through college allowing us to travel around the country for wrestling shows. It was an amazing learning experience that set the stage for a long and rewarding career.