Development

The key to building or improving a website is understanding users — what they want, how they behave, how they could be acquired more cost-effectively, and how competitors contend for them.

Web users’ habits aren’t that different from customers’ habits in the real world. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at.

We analyze and synthesize data from web analytics, focus groups, user testing, and industry research. With this base of insights, we ensure your web presence builds on existing successes, capitalizes on ways to improve, and ultimately improves the site owner’s business in a measurable way.

We consider business needs.

Our sites and platforms are projected to align with established branding, marketing, and business goals.

We plan, and we iterate.

Too many businesses fail to plan their websites. Most often the ever-busy, dynamic nature of running any business is to blame; there are so many operational demands that proper time is not allotted to web projects. But planning for the Web is just as important as planning for anything else in a business.

We believe in best practices.

Conventional design of site elements doesn’t necessarily result in a boring web site. In fact, conventions are useful as they reduce the learning curve for users—just like in the real world where we tend to get used to basic principles of how we organize data, shop, or drive down the road on the right side until we pause at a red light. Conventions can gain users’ confidence and trust.

We underscore user-centered design.

Usability and utility, not just aesthetic, determine a website’s success or failure. The web visitor is the only person who clicks, and therefore makes all the decisions. If users can’t find or use a feature, it might as well not exist.

We get how users think — and don't think.

Users don’t read; they scan. They’re impatient. They want instant gratification. They don’t make optimal choices. They follow their intuition. And they want to have control. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web page in a linear fashion. Instead they choose the first reasonable option and click. So a web page must be obvious and self-explanatory. When we create a website, our job is to get rid of the question marks and focus users’ attention on the right spots… toward business goals.

We strive for simplicity.

Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design. So we strive for simplicity instead of complexity. We organize, economize, communicate.

We cannot spell, so we compensate.

To be more specific, our developers can’t spell. On occasion we’re not even sure they can write full sentences in English, even though they’re all from right here in the Midwest. That’s why we have a diligent team of quality control people and systems who focus on the quality and clarity of our sites’ content before and after they go live.

We test and analyze.

We believe automated testing tools and human review are both required to produce high quality bug-free software. On-going monitoring are done with open-sourced and custom developed tools to insure our web applications are running smoothly and constantly under heavy traffic load.

We prioritize security and maintenance.

We schedule regular back-ups of the website’s files and database. It’s automated, so in the unlikely case that our files or database get hacked, erased, corrupted or otherwise damaged, we can restore them instantly. We design in transition to a multi-device world.

We think ahead.

Because devices used to access the web are evolving rapidly to include a great variety of screen sizes as well as input types (touch, pad, mouse, etc), the process of designing, implementing and managing websites is evolving too. So we focus on the lifeblood of the web: the content. We understand that rigid, unchanging canvases are not the way forward; however, embracing change doesn’t mean moving away from what works. We pay attention to our analytics and design for the devices most used by our audience rather than changing for the sake of change. Designing for an unknown future forces us to understand what’s really important and look critically at content.