Web Design & Website Development
Need a new website? Want your existing site re-vamped? We are a western Massachusetts web design company that can help you with your website development and design needs wherever your business is based.
Web design is the process of creating a user experience and is made up of the look and feel, the user interface and information architecture.
WordPress – We can design your site using the content management system (CMS) WordPress or create one that is completely custom.
Responsive Design – “Responsive web design” means your website provides an optimal viewing and interaction experience on a wide range of devices, from PCs to mobile devices, like smartphones and iPads. We can make your site responsive so that it looks great on any device in which it is viewed.
Search Engine Optimization – We will ensure that every page we design for your site is also search engine optimized.
Here are rules we follow when designing websites:
- Meet with the client to understand exactly what is desired and needed to gain the most from all current web design and marketing techniques. Discover the client’s tastes and what they want for the look and feel of the design.
- Become clear on the client’s goals Learn as much about the client’s site visitors and customers and design for them
- The look & feel should represent the company’s attitude, business persona, tastes and messaging
- Navigation should be easily learned and remain consistent
- Bells and whistles should be kept to a minimum
- Test, test, test
- Get the company’s message across easily and succinctly
- Design the site to facilitate website marketing
- Make the pages search engine friendly
|
Look & Feel
(appearance) |
User Interface
(usability or UX) |
Information Architecture
(organization) |
|
Color schemes Font styles & sizes Font colors Graphics Page layouts |
Links Paywalls LoginsForms Search capabilities |
Site navigation Content organization SilosSite maps Visitor flow |
About Web Design
The most important facet of Web design is the user. The design of a website or Web service should be driven by the user’s needs. One cannot practice Web design without being affected by
the expectations of future users. A business’s website exists to communicate and help the user, the existing and potential.
Following this rule will help make sales. Therefore, the user needs to be central to the creation of a site. To ignore this principle would be like a retail store planner ignoring the fact that customers will soon be navigating through the store and insisting on creating a confusing floor plan that resembled a tortuous maze of racks, trapping even the most experienced person in a labyrinth of aisles of goods who will never see the light of day again.
To successfully accomplish the goals of helping, communicating and selling to the user, a website must have an appropriate appearance and be easy and intuitive to use.
Web design involves first and foremost the look and feel. This is made up of color schemes, font styles and sizes, graphics, page layouts, and how all these elements come together to form the site’s overall appearance.
However, Web design is more than just look and feel, it’s also usability. Usability is the measure of a website’s potential to accomplish the goals of the user. It is accomplished with the
User Interface, the way in which a user can interact with the site and how the site invites interaction and responds to it.
Other types of user interfaces (UI) include html forms and site search functions. Any element of a Web page that invites user interaction can be considered part of the UI.
When designing a site, the number one question to be asking is, “How can I design our site’s appearance and usability to optimally achieve our business’s goals?” If you plan to hire a person or company to design the site, have the answer to this question handy when signing the contract and make sure they understand and can carry out exactly what you need. Beware of design for design’s sake.
In fact, when carrying out any action involving your business’s website, from designing to coding, to maintaining and marketing, the issue of optimally achieving your business’s goals and facilitating the user’s experience should be front and center at all times.
