CCAC AND RIPPLE EFFECTS INTERACTIVE WIN AWARD FOR CCAC.EDU

The Community College of Allegheny Countys website, www.ccac.edu, was honored with a Medallion Award this week at the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR) District 1 annual conference for being one of the best among international community, technical and junior colleges. The school and its interactive marketing partner Ripple Effects Interactive, accepted the award in Boston.

PITTSBURGH PA (PRWEB) November 10, 2003 --- The Community College of Allegheny Countys website, www.ccac.edu, was honored with a Medallion Award this week at the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR) District 1 annual conference for being one of the best among international community, technical and junior colleges. The school and its interactive marketing partner Ripple Effects Interactive, accepted the award in Boston.

The Medallion Award recognizes outstanding achievement in communications. The CCAC.edu site was noted for its overall creativity and effectiveness in marketing and communications, use of hyper-text links, consistency of design and content, and ability to solicit action or return visits from Web users.

When we designed the site, our primary focus was on user experience," said Christine Cornely, web content manager at CCAC. Naturally we wanted to improve the creativity and design of our former site, but we also wanted the new site to be user friendly. Ripple Effects Interactive helped us understand the habits of online users -- especially those seeking higher education -- and to design intuitive navigation schemes to optimize effectiveness for visitors to the site."

CCAC.edu enables all visitors of all backgrounds to find the information they seek. The sites content is organized so that the colleges many audiences -- including prospective and current students, faculty, staff and recruiters -- can locate information they need quickly and easily.

CCAC is one of the nations largest community colleges, and they continue to grow," said Louis Malafarina, chief executive officer of Ripple Effects Interactive. As the schools partner, our priorities were to deliver a dynamic creative design, user experience-guided site architecture and layout, and technological tools such as a content management system to help school administrators update the site -- all towards helping CCAC maintain its growth."

NCMPRs District 1 consists of Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edwards Island, Quebec and the United Kingdom.

Ripple Effects Interactive is a premier interactive agency -- the only Pittsburgh interactive agency ranked among the nations top 50 by Ad Age magazine -- that partners with clients to create innovative online marketing campaigns. The agency offers a full range of services - from strategic marketing communications and website design to online marketing and application development. Located in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with representation in Washington, D.C., Ripple Effects Interactive features a team of 40 interactive specialists. Since 1998 the agency has worked with government, education and large corporate clients, including the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, GlaxoSmithKline, Carnegie Mellon University, Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola. Ripple Effects Interactive has built a reputation for high-quality work, winning more than 75 industry awards in the past three years alone, including the prestigious ID Magazine Gold Award for website design. For more background, visit www.RippleEffectsInteractive.com.

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