Fig Leaf has developed a number of applications for the American Chemical Society, including a Membership Application Wizard and a sophisticated News Service Application.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) approached Fig Leaf Software to rebuild their Online Membership Application. The site consisted of several Perl-based programs used to capture information from applicants and generate emails to the membership processing center. Site content was difficult to change and page layouts were unintuitive, hard to navigate and visually unattractive. Many applicants reported problems with the application process, and many more simply abandoned half-finished applications.

Fig Leaf recommended a three-tiered approach:

1. Store the information collected in case sending or retrieving the email message failed
2. Improve the layouts, ease of use, and visual attractiveness of the application pages
3. Generate dynamic page instructions and supporting lists to allow easy maintenance by ACS personnel with little or no HTML experience Fig Leaf rebuilt the site using ColdFusion to generate dynamic site content, store captured information in a SQL database and automatically generate confirmation email messages.

The application still sends a notification email to the ACS membership processing center. Fig Leaf designers redesigned the site pages to provide an attractive, intuitive interface for gathering applicant information. Fig Leaf business analysts worked with ACS personnel to define a set of rules to control the page flow through the application. These new application flows allow information presentation on one page to be dependant on information entered on one or more previous pages. After implementing the new system, ACS experienced a decrease in the number of abandoned online applications. The Online Membership application Fig Leaf created is a dramatic improvement for the site from a functionality standpoint. The wizard-like end-user interface is very user-friendly and easy-to-use. Additionally, membership personnel save time and costs by updating site content without involving development staff.