Web Design
Responsive Design
Today, most of us have multiple mobile devices - phones, tablets, hybrid laptops etc. Display sizes, screen types, resolution all vary across these devices, & it’s not good enough to build a site that works well on just a desktop / laptop computer.
You need assurance that your site will hold up no matter what device you’re on. There are still sites today that aren’t “responsive”. Again, government sites ( not all ) are a shining example - all the buttons are very small, including the body copy, & you often have to zoom in alot to read the information, or orient your phone to landscape because some of the information disappears off the screen. Joy unspeakable..:).
To be clear, todays Content Management Systems or CMS have a level of responsiveness built into them. We’ve come along way since the days of HTML. BUT, there’s always tweaks that need to be made, so your site not only adapts to multiple devices, but works well. This is a headache the client doesn’t need, nor should they have to, so we take care of this.
Planning
Planning is a necessary part of the process, a collaborative approach, working with you to produce relevant, concise content for your site. This also includes image selection as well. We understand if you have your own images that you’ve selected. Our content planning will scale or shrink depending on your needs, so even if you have all of your own content, we will always offer advice, & organise that content so it’s exactly where it needs to be. Positioning matters. All this is done so every page serves a purpose.
Content Creation
Content is king, and an art form that if done correctly anticipates the reader’s reasons for visiting your site. The planning process essentially provides the foundation & framework, so, once this is completed and signed off, we can move on to writing content. Language is the key to writing engaging content, that’s easily understood, concise, & relevant. As long as potential customers find what they want quickly, that will create the kind of User Experience, you as a business owner, need. The ultimate goal is to generate business.
Design
Design, whether print, web, or tv, will evoke thoughts & emotions in the psyche of the viewer. This manifests as either a positive, negative, or indifferent response. Colour & tone, work to produce a myriad of feelings & emotions in people. They also carry meaning, sometimes universal, others with a more cultural and/or local significance. A good web designer must have an eye for colour, composition, & balance, & know how to harmonise them with other content to produce a work that conveys the appropriate message, and elicits the desired response.
Development - Why WordPress?
While there are numerous Content Management Systems ( CMS ) out there, WordPress still remains the most dominant CMS in the market today. Among websites that do use a CMS, WordPress powers over 64% of them.
There are good reasons for this, with over 50,000 plugins available to enhance your WordPress site. Expandability is the key. Whether it's database integration, ecommerce, client membership areas, payment portals, or SEO. Add to this an impressive collection of WP themes, & webpage builders, the sky's the limit as they say. This is why WordPress is our CMS of choice. Sounds like a shameless promo, but WP gives us the confidence, & tools, to address your needs .
Website Design & Development
A companies branding is everything. In today’s age of information, your site is the front face of your business. Design isn’t just about making things look pretty. Professional design has a purpose.
Most of us have very short attention spans. We want our information in the quickest time possible, and easily, digestable segments . Colours, spacing, tone and balance should all combine to create a great user experience. Part of that user experience is being able to find the relevent information, quickly, and with a great snapshot of the company – their services, location, customer service etc.
The other is usability & function. It’s no use having a nice looking site that is frustrating, unintuitive, and doesn’t function as intended. Well known companies all share one thing in common. Their sites tick all these boxes.
Except for government sites. They’re just plain horrible. Our goal is to do likewise, so we have a process in place to facilitate this.
UX Design Demystified
The term UX Design has become a buzzword over the last 5-10 years, and shows no signs of dying anytime soon. It’s existed for far longer than it’s newfound popularity, for good reason. Generally I’m not a fan of buzzwords. They come and go with rising & falling trends & tend to be obscenely overused by marketing types, so I seldom pay them little attention.
This is one exception though. UX or User Experience design caries real meaning & really serves as an umbrella term, encompassing a whole family of disciplines – web apps, mobile game & app development for ios / android , web site design & development, even the radio / navigation hub in your car. There was a time when sites had to be hand-coded in HTML. I miss those days. No, not really. At that time, design & layout options were extremely limited.
As a consequence, usability was the main goal. Then CSS ( Cascading Style Sheets ) appeared onto the scene, and all of a sudden web designers had at their disposable a host of styling options.
Fast forward to today, and we not only have vastly expanded CSS tools, but Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Webflow, Square Space, & others. This has changed the web development landscape and opened up almost limitless design possibilites.
What does this have to do with UX Design? Simply put, we now have at our desposal all the tools we need to create websites that combine both usability & design. This is why many people love Apple products.
From the backend to the frontend, they create products that have as their foundation a UX design philosophy and when implemented correctly, provide a great user experience. This should always be the end goal.