Design
Working in partnership with you to develop a site which reflects your company.
Standard questions your site should answer:
“What is the primary purpose of the site?”
“Does your site capture the interests of your target audience?”
Each website project is a collaborative approach.
An initial consultation is key to help us understand what you envision your website to be.
Business needs and requirements are assessed to help build your site to meet your needs.
We will outline the content that you will need to provide to help drive information which will give you the ability to target your audience.
Understanding your website purpose to:
- Design a site to convey what you are trying to accomplish
- Define navigation paths and website structure
- Develop design screen shots
- Derive key words and key word phrases for search engine optimization
Working to exceed your expectations.
The development process is iterative and cooperative.
You will have access to your work in progress site on a test folder uploaded to your site.
This will give you the ability to view your site to ensure it meets your needs.
Making your vision a reality.
Your site will be published to it’s final destination. Your URL submitted to major search engines and documentation on how to maintain and manage your site.
Effective visual design.
A website is a visual representation which reflects your company. Effective visual design and presentation delivers a powerful concise format, intuitive navigation and clear content layout.
Key principles used when designing your site (click on item to expand):
- Usability
- bold
- emphasis
- lists
- images
- Feature Exposure
- steps
- large buttons
- visual effects
- Effective Writing
- categorize content
- multiple heading levels
- bulleted lists
- White Space
Designing your site for usability, you need to understand how users think and the basic patterns of users’ behaviour.
Users don’t read, they scan and explore pages in an “F” pattern. There are areas of the page that are not even looked at. Users search for fixed points or anchors that guide them through the content of the page:
Don’t make users think. Don’t make users search for answers. Communicate why the website is useful and how can they benefit from it.
Lead visitors through the site in a simple and friendly manner. Let users clearly see what functions are available through:
Use short and concise phrases max 18 words, 50 – 80 characters per line of text.
Incorporate scan-able layout elements:
Use whitespace to help reduce cognitive overload. Present content in a visual hierarchy which will make the content easier to perceive.
Sources:
User Friendly Resources
Google Documents
Reading Patterns