Tarion Warranty Corporation Public Website

"I Envision... a clean, simple website that presents a professional image to visitors and an accurate representation of our organization.”

The Client

Tarion Warranty Corporation is a private corporation that was established in 1976 to protect the rights of new home buyers and regulate new home builders. Since their inception, Tarion has become one of the most comprehensive new home warranty programs in North America. Tarion is responsible for administering the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act, which outlines the warranty protection that new home and condominium builders must provide, by law, to their customers. The primary purpose of Tarion is to ensure that builders abide by this legislation, and to step in to protect consumers when builders fail to fulfil their warranty obligations. Over the years, Tarion has paid out over $190 million in claims from its guarantee fund. Financed entirely by builder registration, renewal and home enrolment fees, Tarion receives no government funding and has guaranteed warranty protection for well over 1.45 million new homes.

The Solution

When Tarion first engaged Envision IT, they were looking to replace Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 on their public website. The new content management system was required to administer Tarion's corporate website www.tarion.com. The existing Tarion website was comprised of mainly of static HTML pages, a search engine, 3 dynamic components, links to external providers (publications.tarion.com) and the Online Seminar Library, as well as links to Builder and Consumer portals.

Tarion saw the significant potential in leveraging the enhanced functionality of SharePoint 2010, specifically web content management and publishing with workflow. Envision IT redeveloped the site, using the existing look and feel, and styles provided by Tarion. A great deal of attention was paid to the master page and each page layout to ensure that branding consistency was maintained with the existing Tarion.com website.

Specific focus was placed on crafting the navigation and accessibility settings to ensure a homogenous experience for the end user. Content queries were used in several areas of the site to allow Tarion's content management staff to maintain information in lists that would automatically update specific pages within the site. In the Careers section, built-in SharePoint functionality is utilized to automatically convert a Word document to a web page, thus eliminating the need to provide extensive publishing training to HR staff who need only maintain a small section of the site. The Envision IT Custom 404 feature ensures that visitors who enter an incorrect URL never receive an unfriendly 404 error, and thus they are less likely to leave the site frustrated.

Website Redesign

In 2011, following the successful migration of their public website to SharePoint 2010, Tarion recognized that their site needed a complete redesign and refresh in order to offer a more professional, accurate representation of the organization to visitors. Envision IT developed a new creative design that presents a cleaner, simpler appearance to visitors. Page layouts and styles have a modern look and feel, and lots of white space makes reading easier. Although the site architecture was left untouched, the navigation is laid out in a clear manner so that users know exactly where they are and where they can go next. Relevant and well-organized information is broken into sections which are easy to navigate and understand.

The Envision IT Image Rotator on the home page allows visitors to interact with images that are easily updated, providing visual interest and links to targeted pages. Various custom content query web parts throughout the site present information such as News and Events, Builder Bulletins, Quarterly Conviction Reports and Builder Arbitration Forum Decisions in an organized manner that is easy to find and reference, while maintaining the overall style of the site.

“We are thrilled with the website that Envision IT created and implemented, in a short timeline. The new creative concept and designs are clean and professional, and we are confident to launch to our customers. The working relationship has been excellent – the whole Envision IT team was dedicated and efficient, responding to our requests quickly and providing us with a site that addressed everything we were looking for. We would not hesitate to work with them again on other projects.”

The Results

• A completely re-built site on a modern, easy-to-use, flexible and supported platform
• A site where both home buyers and builders can find the information they need on Tarion services and the company as a whole
• Prominent quick links direct users to key service areas
• A clean, modern site that presents a professional image to the public; overall impression and representation of the organization is more accurate
• Branding and layouts that maintain a consistent message throughout the site
• Content is easy for authors to update