Web design and usability

Our creative team is skilled at developing designs which fuse your brand values with the needs of key audience groups. Our development team make these designs a reality with tidy, future proof CSS and coding. While project managers (PM) ensure that your project runs on time and budget. Together, we design memorable online experiences, which are easy to navigate, visually stimulating and accessible. Our web design approach is outlined below.

Sound site strategy

At the outset of a redesign, we work with you to establish your macro objectives for the site. Where are user journeys leading? What would you like your site visitors to achieve on-site? Competitor analysis, examination of existing web statistics and click tracking software all help inform our overall site strategy and the design brief. Without this vital road map projects can go astray.

Putting the user first

Good design is about exceeding the expectations of your users online. Show-stopping creative must go hand-in-hand with a well devised information architecture (IA): putting user needs at the heart of everything. We use user personas to profile your audience groups, mapping their journeys to the emerging IA to ensure a seamless experience.

Inspired creative

With a well planned IA in place, the crafting of a look and feel that speaks volumes to visitors and captures your brand personality begins. We evolve the seed of an idea from the design brief through mood boards, wireframes, sketches and design concepts to an original and innovative final version, which will vitalise your brand online.

Killer copy

Copywriting for the web is entirely different from anything you will have done offline. Online is a fast food medium: visitors don't have the time to read reams of text and expect to find what they need quickly and easily. We are experienced in writing copy which is user-friendly; scannable; succinct and search engine optimised.

Accessibility

We are strongly committed to designing and building sites that comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and WAI guidelines. Our design; build methods and content are all geared towards increasing the accessibility of our clients’ websites. A useful by-product of building an accessible website is improved positions in search engine results pages.

Building for flexibility

Once the design has been approved, it is turned into templates. We use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and xHTML to ensure that future design reskins are straight-forward and cost effective. CSS and xHTML also make your site quick to load, search engine friendly and compatible with the major browsers. Our development team then take the templates and code them to create a future-proof, flexible site.

Testing

We know never to second-guess users: the only way to ensure that your emerging website exceeds user expectations is to conduct user testing. The resulting intelligence is fed back into the site prior to launch. At this point we also test all of our content, code and functionality in major browsers to ensure that the go live is as smooth as possible.

Ongoing Support

Throughout your build a dedicated project manager is on hand to answer your questions and co-ordinate the project, ensuring time and cost efficiency. Post launch, your PM offers on-going assistance and manages any support issues that may arise. PMs also help you develop future ideas for your site; after all, your new website is just the beginning of your online story.

To discuss your planned website redesign, phone our Managing Director, George Crabb on 020 7089 5959 or email george.crabb@othermedia.com