Commack, NY – Tamron is a leading manufacturer of lenses and optical components for photographic, industrial, laboratory, video, digital and scientific applications. Among Tamron’s chief priorities is helping its customers—from amateur to seasoned photographers—choose the right lens products to succeed creatively. Maintaining an interactive, resource-rich website is a must in meeting customer needs.

Skylar Design first captured Tamron’s web vision in 2004, redesigning the company’s entire www.tamron.com site. A second version of the site was introduced by Skylar in 2006. Tamron’s website consistently sees over 100,000 unique visitors each month with a healthy percentage of new, versus returning, visitors.

In early 2009 the two companies collaborated again to enhance Tamron’s photo landing page. The focus: communicating products, news and resources to existing users and potential buyers with fewer clicks and greater site interaction. Launched in April, Tamron says the new site is “more functional than ever.”

Site Objectives

Skylar began its mission by reassessing the architecture of Tamron’s photo landing page. Their challenge was determining how to masterfully redesign the page within the site’s existing framework since an entire site redesign was not necessary.

Next, Skylar would evaluate Tamron’s need for four major landing page areas: a rotating animation feature to draw attention to products, workshops, contents and events; a showcase for its top-three lenses; a spotlight section for other featured products; and an ongoing learning/education component.

Skylar’s Solutions

Skylar audited existing content, studying what users were currently looking for most. Then, the design team streamlined Tamron’s content into more efficient sections within the existing framework and positioned it on the landing page for greater scalability. The result:

Tamron’s new photo lens section features an elegant animation sequence of images and roll-out information blocks for top products and promotions. Best-selling lenses are highlighted next, and interactive tools such as the Lens Finder and Depth of Field help customers easily work through product choices. The Learning Center section focuses on Tamron’s training and development.

A social media section also was incorporated by Skylar to increase site users’ sense of community and allow them to share their experiences and their images via websites like Flickr™, Facebook™, YouTube™ and Twitter™.

Multiple, straightforward navigation systems bring all the landing page elements together and provide users greater access to more information from one top-page tab location or a supplemental site map listing along the bottom of the page.

Thanks to the Skylar-Tamron alliance, “The new design gives the website visitor a full picture right from the top page as to what types of resources Tamron offers photographers of all levels,” said Stacie Errera, chief marketing officer for Tamron USA.

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