Our Web Design Process

Before we start anything else with your website we first like to learn about your business and what your goals & vision are for the website. We believe this step is of ultimate importance, as anyone can create a website, but not everyone can create a successful website and the first step to creating a successful website is learning about your business, how you run it & how you engage with your customers.

Important information includes details such as what you want your customer to do when they visit your website, what are you trying to achieve with your website & what is the purpose of your website.

It's important to remember that your website will be an extension of your business and it needs to be run as you would run your normal everyday business.

In this step we gather all your website requirements from you, such as what pages you would like on your website, what appears on each of these pages, what kind of look you're going for with your website & anything else specific you would like on your website.

We also discuss other topics such as if you have any preferences to what software we will use on the site, if for example you need shopping cart software or a CMS (Content Management Software); if you're uncomfortable with this decision we would be more than happy to make some recommendations.

We can also build & design completely custom CMS software for you to manage your website to offer you ultra flexibility in managing your website.

This is when all the graphic design is produced for your website & we make everything start to look pretty. We will ask you some questions beforehand to establish what kind of look you are hoping to achieve with the website and also provide us with some example websites that you like the look of so we can do our best to come up with the right look & feel for your website right off the bat.

Once we have a base design for your website we send it off to you for your approval and once approved we finalise the design on all interior pages and move onto the next process.

The development stage is when everything 'comes to life' so to speak. All your website designs go through the XHTML/CSS Authoring process, content is added to all the pages, SEO optimisation is done and if required any frontend, backend & database programming is produced in this stage.

This is also the stage where any software installations and/or customisations will take place such as setting up ecommerce software & content management systems and if required integrating your new site design within this software.

Once everything has been put together we run several tests on the website to ensure the site is functioning how it should, there are no broken links or other problems throughout the site and also confirm everything has been completed per the requirements.

Once the site appears to be complete & bug free we send it over for final approval. Once you are happy with the site we move on to the following process.

One major process that most website owners overlook is how their customers interact with their website. Are they finding the things they want to find easily? Are they finding the site confusing or overly complex and then leaving the site out of frustration?

Tools such as Google Analytics are good to tell us where users are leaving the site, but they don't tell us why users are leaving the site on that particular page; that is why usability testing is so important, it gives you insight into why customers are leaving your site.

If your customers aren't finding what they want to find easily then they are much more likely to leave your site and seek out one of your competitors.

This is why we offer our clients who engage our services for a new website or a website redesign FREE* usability testing; the service is provided by a third-party provider and we manage the feedback we receive from them and discuss the appropriate changes (if any) with you.

This is the most exciting process when your site finally gets to go live and you get to pop out the champagne! The sites looking great & functioning like it should and your customers are now ready to enjoy it.

If your new website comes with any software such as a content management system we will also teach you how to use it.

After the site is launched we are always available for post-sales support and are happy to help. With every project we do we also offer a maintenance grace period where if you notice something small you would like changed then we will be happy to make the change for you at no extra charge. After this period ends, we are also more than happy to help you at our current hourly rates.