1A goes Material Design - 1A First Alternative

Welcome to our new website. The design you will probably be familiar. That’s because we have chosen to use Google’s Material Design standard.

What is Material Design?

This design standard synthesizes the classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science. It ensures a uniform experience across platforms and device sizes. Also different input methods, such as touch, voice, the mouse and keyboard are all important input methods.

The foundational elements of print-based design (typography, grids, space, scale, color, and use of imagery) guide visual treatments. These elements do far more than please the eye. They create hierarchy, meaning, and focus. Deliberate color choices, edge-to-edge imagery, large-scale typography, and intentional white space create a bold and graphic interface that immerse the user in the experience of a three-dimensional environment with light, material and drop shadows.

More information about this design standard can be found on the website of the Material Design guidelines.

Material Design at 1A

We have received a lot of feedback on the design of the previous website, My1A, the 1A-manager and the 1A start page. This feedback and our own insights have led to three main requirements:

the websites must work properly on desktop, tablet and mobile (responsive design);
the elements on the websites must be recognizable (most people know Android and Google Apps);
the websites must project tranquility and be aesthetically pleasing.

With Material Design we found a design standard that meets our requirements and can be implemented freely. We did this based on the open source Materialize (MITlicense).

Multiple websites

Previously most information could be found on a single website. Because we are dealing with multiple audiences, we have decided to split the information into three websites:

www.1afa.com contains general information for customers and prospects;
partner.1afa.com is meant for ICT service providers interested in 1A partnership;
manuals.1afa.com contains all our user manuals.

There is also our web portal My1A. Because this was already a separate component, it will be converted to Material Design later on.