Before you start the design and build phases of your website, consider the long term plans for your website. During the project it's too easy to lose sight of what the website should actually do.
If it's an e-commerce site? Your short-term objectives will probably be to create the images, product descriptions and pricing, and put them into a suitable category structure, your medium term objectives might include creating information pages, contact forms and getting the site live.
During the design and build phases there are so many tasks to complete, designs and prototypes to brief and approve, data to collate, copy to write, images to create. Sometimes it's such a relief just to get to the end of the project, you forget the basics, such as...
It seems so obvious that it gets forgotten. But if you are targeting retired people, don't create a design for teenagers, use a typeface that's readable, make the interface simple and intuitive and that doesn't require any additional plug-ins.
We create profiles of target users to help us identify their needs, we also conduct usability tests with users who fit the profile to ensure we are meeting those needs.
Focusing on user tasks during design and prototyping means you create a design that is fit for purpose. Take the e-commerce scenario, most users just want to be able to locate a particular product or browse through all the products, select products to buy, and buy them.
However, it's not all about users, the website must also meet your business requirements. You will want to maximise revenue, the best way of achieving this is to help users buy from you..
These can vary but will generally be around Trust - security, reliability, reputation, quality and value. All of these issues can be addressed during the project, using statements, policies, guarantees, recommendations, reviews and price promises. Failure to recognise these issues mean that you will not be addressing their concerns and providing them with a reason NOT to buy from you.
We add these concerns within user profiles and address them during design and prototyping phases of a project.
Look at the competition, are they cheaper than you? Do they offer better delivery options, do you offer money back guarantees? Or is their site better designed, with products easier to view, better technical details, etc. Do they show a lot of reviews from customers, like Amazon?.
We survey Competitor websites to ensure that we understand the expectations of the customer, with a view to making your website their first choice..
There's no point having a website if nobody can find you. This invariably means you have to be visible in Search Engines but this can take time to achieve..
We believe that providing good quality content is about 90% of search engine optimisation, we help you build a website that other sites want to link to, that get talked about and that search engines want to list higher than the Competition.