websites
What makes a great website?
It’s what you see...
Good content
Give them what they want. Identify why users are coming to your site and tell them the facts. Show them the pictures. Deliver the goods.
On the other hand, if you don’t have anything to say don’t bother saying it. i.e. don’t make a section called NEWS if you don’t intend to keep it updated. Don’t make people click into a page that doesn’t really tell them anything.
Good layout
Website design communicates a message, and that message needs to stand out in a millisecond.
Less is more: white space is your friend. If you try to emphasize everything, you will emphasize nothing.
Your information must be organized, easy to read and delivered in clean and simple format. We will design a style sheet for fonts and layout that will help you get your message across with appealing emphasis and help you reduce clutter.
Be brief. Users will stick around if they can absorb your information quickly through images, headings and short chunks of related text. Use headlines and bold formatting to break up your content so users can zone in to where they want to go. Give their eyes a break. You will have more visual impact if you can communicate your message with 1 phrase and/or 1 interesting graphic than pages and pages of text.
Good usability
Figure out the hierarchy of your information and decide what is of PRIMARY, SECONDARY and TERTIARY importance. A good website will stir your audience to act. What actions do you want them to take when they come to your site? Do you want them to register or sign up for something? Purchase something? Contact you? Add content to your site? Download documents, videos or other information? Know what it is you are hoping to achieve and we will help you find a way to make it happen.
User friendly design. Readers want to scan your page like a map and know intuitively where to go.
Good usability is about common sense. But it’s not always obvious. It requires an understanding of how web users see, think and act. Good usability is invisible. Bad usability is glaring.
...and it’s what you don’t see:
- Clean code
- An extensible site architecture so your site can grow and expand over time
- A CMS with sound widgets and plug-ins to support new features
- Search Engine Optimization and Google credibility
