Phase I
Every great empire has had its first brick laid at some point.
To attract customers, you must first have a functional and attractive digital user experience.
We like building on a solid foundation. Each website we create is with best practices in mind, while keeping the user experience (UX) at the forefront of our design philosophy.
This is an important step that too many skip. In order to build, one must first have an objective, and understand the requirements of the website. Without this, projects are doomed to be overrun and fail.
Before putting any virtual pen to any virtual paper, we must first have a deep discussion to understand the goals of your project.
There isn’t any point in building without a clear goal in mind. No skyscraper can successfully be built without having a solid blueprint that takes all of your needs and wants into consideration.
Some of the questions we’ll have to answer together include…
From your answers, we’ll go through a series of ideas, fleshing out the end product that you would like your customers to see.
Brainstorming is an essential step in the web design process. It’s the time to gather ideas and think creatively about the design and functionality of the website. The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible, no matter how wild or unrealistic they may seem.
The brainstorm process could includes:
Wireframing is an important step in our web development process. It’s the process of creating a visual representation of the layout, structure, and functionality of your ideal website before it’s built.
Wireframes are often simple, black and white sketches that show the basic design elements of a webpage, such as the placement of text, images, and buttons. It also allows our team to think through the user experience and identify potential issues before any development work is done. This helps to communicate design ideas to the team and stakeholders, and get feedback early on in the process.
Moodboarding visually communicates the overall aesthetic and design direction. It is a collage of images, colours and visual elements that inspire your brand.
The goal of moodboarding is to establish a consistent visual language that can be used throughout the design process.
This step helps you establish the “vibe” your final design will have.
During this process, we will add similar examples and eliminate ideas that don’t fit with your branding.
With your goals in mind, we draft the blueprints that will form a concept for your website. Where beautiful designs meet practical user experience, the design should always be something you’re proud of.
If your brand is still as yet undecided, we’ll add this in to help you conceptualise the face of your business.
Your brand style may include logo, color scheme, shapes, brand voice, and the overall identity that your company represents.
A strong brand identity is essential for any business that wants to establish a presence online.Â
It helps to create a sense of trust and credibility with customers, and can also help to differentiate a business from its competitors.
This consistent theming will permeate any and all content produced going forward.Â
It ensures that all elements of the brand are consistent and cohesive, and that the overall aesthetic aligns with the brand’s identity.
Designing how the website would look as an end product is a highly collaborative exercise and we work together hand-in-glove to achieve your vision.
From your ideas and our previous material with the moodboard, we’ll draw out the blueprints for your website, and gauge your response.
We will continue revising until you are satisfied with your final vision.
This exercise is typically conducted on Figma, where you’ll have an inside view of the design process.
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Throughout the design process, we’ll be regularly conversing with you to get feedback as we build together.
Using modern collaborative tools, you can leave comments and remarks directly on the blueprints to your website as you like.
Your comments will go towards the final design and everything you say will be taken into consideration.
What is important is a functional yet aesthetically pleasing site that gains you the conversions you’re looking for.
Even though each project is bespoke and tailored to your needs, there’s always a certain feature/functionality that’s specific to your business that you may need.
For these extra-special requests, we always treat them with extra care to ensure they meet your requriements.
No customisation is too complex for us, you name it, we’ve got it!
What are good looks for if it isn’t functional? Our development team brings any eccentric design to life. With dedication and care, each line of code is written to the best of standards.
DevOps includes the sysadmin/webmaster part of web development. The foundational lower-level parts of the website should be laid out for solid development later.
This is akin to the fundamental machinery on which your website runs. An organised set up here will allow for easier fixes in the future by ensuring all moving parts are securely handled.
Some of the work here include:
There are a large number of tech stacks that we can work with, depending on your needs. We primarily recommend WordPress and Shopify, but can also work on completely custom stacks, bespoke to your specific needs.
With the design finalised upon previously, we’ll use that as the gold standard for delivering a functional website for your business.
During this process, we’ll be a little more silent, working on the codebase and ironing out the technical kinks internally. Worry not, we’ll always update you on progress and communicate with you should we run into anything particular.
User Acceptance Testing is done at the end of the development process before the website is released into production.
This is done by going through a series of tasks a typical user would encounter. We may use some sample real-world data to identify any issues or defects that may not have been discovered during earlier testing phases.
We then log any issues, bugs or glitches during that user experience, which are then sent back to the development team as feedback for improvement.
It provides a final opportunity to ensure that the software meets the needs of the end-users and thus reduces risk on your production team.
We do not rest until every bug is squashed and you’re happy with it being viewed from either an iPhone, or a your new 4k monitor.
We’ll hand the site over to you with a report summarising our journey together, including some instructions on how to use the site.
See the rest of the methodology in our Full-Service approach.
