Custom Web Design

Our creative team understands what constitutes a professional site design. Simplicity, moderation, and clarity are the principal guidelines to follow in ensuring an engaging, highly usable, and well-structured online presence.

Design Principles

  • Start with a simple sketch
  • Focus on the user experience (UX) and user-centered interface design
  • Use a grid system for the placement and alignment of all visual objects
  • Arrange the visual elements to work together and every element must have a purpose
  • Understand typography and how a typeface communicates and reinforces messaging
  • Develop well written content
  • Employ smart color schemes, which requires a strong knowledge of color theory
  • Implement valid and well-formed semantically correct markup (XHTML)
  • Optimize pages for fast download
  • Accessible for the visually disabled
  • Create an intuitive navigation system
  • A highly organized information architecture (IA)

Usability:

Checklist:

  • Identify the ideal user or target audience
  • Understand the reasons why the user will be coming to the Web site
  • Determine the functions the user wants and what the site needs to do
  • Support the client's goals without obstructing the visitor's goals
  • Ensure consistency throughout the site and organize the IA into a site map.
  • Assess whether the site's navigation is easy to use and intuitive
  • Check for bugs, grammatical and spelling mistakes
  • Ensure the sites accessibility for user's with disabilities

Pre-launch User Testing

  • Assemble a focus group of current and potential users to perform a site-wide test.
  • Provide focus groups with an online functional prototype and track their interaction via remote testing.
  • Review the functions and processes to ensure they meet the user's expectations.
  • Use analytics and metrics to analyze visitor's trends and usage based on the current design.

Basic user tasks and questions:

  • Does a page's title accurately describe its purpose?
  • Are titles and headings clear and distinct?
  • Do headings precede related paragraphs?
  • Do headings make sense out of context?
  • Are related sub-points or sub-navigation links grouped into lists?
  • Are sentences and paragraphs short and to the point?
  • Do links make sense out of context?
  • Are separate ideas kept in separate sentences and paragraphs?
  • Is additional context provided by a mouseover tip such as links and images?
  • Is white space used to separate ideas?
  • Was the site easy to navigate and were the labels for the links intuitive?
  • Do links match destination titles?
  • Was the text size legible and easy to read?
  • Do they like the overall layout?
  • Do they like the color scheme?
  • How can you get back to the Homepage from an interior page without using the main menu?
  • Perform a search using the "Search Box," and did it garnish any results?
  • Complete the "Contact Us" form, and was the "CAPTCHA" spam solution difficult or easy to use?
  • Name your three favorite things about the site, and your three least favorite.
  • If there was one-thing they would change, what would it be?

ROI

  • Improves client loyalty and satisfaction
  • Sales increase by simplifying site processes
  • Helps your visitors achieve their goals
  • Reduces bounce rates
  • Ensures the business is effective in it's particular industry
  • Improves the site's overall design, functionality and information architecture
  • Improves SEO

Resources

Best Practices

Our creative team considers the site requirements and documentation phase to be the most important part of any web-based initiative. Understanding the scope of the project is the key component to creating a successful web presentation.