Website Design. Big and Small.
Catalyst leverages our deep website (also web site) design skills to enable you to uniquely establish your brand identity presence online. As an advertising agency with a commitment to overall consistency in your graphic design communications, we will make sure your website design / development nicely ties into to your overall marketing brand image (i.e. your ad design, sales collateral, stationery / letterhead package). From a small, four-page website design to a large integrated, multi-page website design, we can help you with your website design planning stages through going live! For extensive (and more costly) Google, Yahoo, MSN search needs, we partner with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants who specialize in website search techniques. We also have strategic parnters who focus on website database development to leverage the latest technologies to ensure that your new website design delivers to you the critical information and/or tracking results that you desire.
Website Development. A Process With You at the Center.
Phase One: Information Gathering
Step one involves a solid understanding of the company the website design is created for. It involves a good understanding of you – what your business goals and dreams are, and how the web can be utilized to help you achieve those goals. It will involve us asking a lot of questions to help us undersand your business and your needs in the website development process, like...
Purpose... Do you want to provide information, promote a service, sell a product… ?
Goals... What do you hope to accomplish in this web site development? Two of the more common goals are to make money or share information.
Target Audience... Is there a specific group of people that will help you reach your goals? It is helpful to picture the “ideal” person you want to visit your website. This will later help determine the best web design style.
Content... Will the target audience be looking for specific information, a particular product or service, online ordering?
Phase Two: Planning Your Website Design and Development
We then put together a plan or a site map for your website development. The site map is a list of all main topic areas of the site, as well as sub-topics, if applicable. This serves as a guide as to what content will be on the website design, and is essential to the development of a consistent, easy to understand navigational system. Here is where we will look together at online examples for competitive web sites, inspiring sites, sites with navigation and buttons you like, and much more in order to get as many ideas of what YOU wish to see in the web design / navigation / functionality. Getting your site preferences will serve to “get everyone on the same page” in advance, thus virtually eliminating wasted effort. This gives you more control of the direction, process and budget. It is said that a “picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, our visual logo design resource is used to accomplish what words cannot.
The end-user of the web site (your customer) must be kept in mind when designing a website, after all, the people who will be learning about your service or buying your product. A good user interface creates an easy to navigate web site. During this phase, we will also help you decide what technologies should be implemented. Elements such as interactive forms, ecommerce, flash, etc. are discussed when planning your web site development.
Phase Three: Actual Website Design
This phase is where we determine the look and feel of your website design. Again, we will look together at online site examples for your design preferences to get your critical input on what it is that YOU think will best connect with your target audience(s). A website design aimed at teenagers will look much different than one made for a financial institution. As part of this phase, we will surely incorporate elements such as the company logo or colors to help strengthen the identity of your company on the web site.
Our designer will create a few prototype designs for your web site based on our time together. This is typically a simple layered Photoshop image of what the home page and typical inside page may look like. You wil be sent an email with the initial web designs for your site. This gives you the opportunity to express your likes and dislikes on the website design. We want the final site to match your needs and taste.
Phase Four: Your Website Developmentt
This stage is where our designer will take all of the individual graphic elements from the website prototype design and use them to create the actual, functional site. This is typically done by first developing the home page, followed by a shell or “typical inside page” for the interior pages which serves as a template for the content pages of your site, as it contains the main navigational structure for the web development. Once the typical inside website page has been created, our designer will take your content and distribute it throughout the site, in the appropriate areas.
This entire time, our designer will make your in-progress site available to you for viewing, so that you can suggest any additional changes or corrections you would like to have done in this web develoment phase.
On the technical front, a successful web site requires an understanding of front-end web development like knowing valid XHTML / CSS / OTHER code that complies to current web standards, maximizing functionality, as well as accessibility for as large an audience as possible. Elements such as interactive contact forms, flash animations or ecommerce shopping carts are implemented and made functional during this phase, as well.
Phase Five: Testing and Delivery of the Website
We will test things such as the functionality of forms or other scripts, as well as testing for last minute compatibility issues (viewing the live website development code on different web browsers), ensuring that your web site is optimized to be viewed properly as many browsers as possible.
Upon your approval, we upload the website design files to your server. We will suggest some preferred providers, but we recommend that you research and secure you own Internet Service Provider (ISP) so that you have maximum control. We will work seamlessly with your ISP to make sure that your files are uploaded properly and are ready to go live.
Phase Six: Website Maintenance
The web site development is not necessarily over, because website maintenance must be considered. One way to bring repeat visitors to your site is to regularly offer new content or products. We will be happy to continue working together with you, to update the information on your web site.
If you prefer to be more hands on, and update your own content, there is something called a CMS (Content Management System) that can be implemented to your web site developement code. This is something that would be decided upon during the Planning stage. With a CMS, our designer will utilize online software to develop a database driven site that gives you the ability to do website maintenance edits to the content areas of the website. yourself.
