Take your bank on the road.

• Position: Website - Transportation Alliance Bank Inc.

Institution: Transportation Alliance Bank Inc., Ogden, Utah

Assets: $145 million

This bank's website is critical to the institution's operation, since most of its customers (trucking industry professionals) do all of their banking online. When the bank decided to redesign its website, it put a premium on a design that clearly communicated that the institution meets the unique financial needs of the truck industry--without using a lot of text to say so.

The bank provided multiple paths to enable customers to get to applications quickly--without the need to hunt. The bank also placed its toll-free telephone number on every page so that customers can easily contact the bank while logged on.

The redesign took nine months from beginning to end. Diana Windley, vice president of marketing, says involvement with the information technology group is key to success in these types of redesigns. "In my opinion, most IT groups want to 'own' the website, but I believe that it belongs to marketing and corporate communications."

She recommends banks doing a redesign first obtain top-down buy-in to the concept that the website is a marketing tool.

"Don't assume too much when it comes to the customers' knowledge of the Internet and how to navigate a website," she adds. "It needs to be as simple as possible--the fewer clicks to get to a desired location, the better."

Also, she recommends limiting user names and passwords to a...