How we go about creating the best design
Getting the full picture
We work together to set out the full requirements. We get to know your business, your clients and your audience. We will focus on objectives of the website, discover how the user interacts, the value that it aims to bring and how we are guaranteed to achieve success.
Together we look beyond the initial design to the the functional requirements of the website. We'd like to scope the project correctly from the beginning.
Here is also an opportunity to determine the areas that may be added to the website later on, things that may be unique to your requirements, such as functionality like booking systems, shopping cart, paywalls, user registration or data feeds.
We take a good look around
The online world is competitive. Out there will be businesses that have done or are doing similar things. It's always worthwhile to see how they are doing things.
Our research takes us beyond the borders of New Zealand. We look at the designs of many websites in other countries, and while our designs are original, there will be areas where we get inspiration from others.
In fact, we ask you look around as well and to provide feedback on the designs that resonate with you. The process enables us to become focused a few broad design options that we can take forward for consideration.
We put pen to paper
The first drafts of our design are usually outlined on paper as a "wireframe" design. Here we can see how the user would interact with various device types, desktop, tablet and mobile. We deliver 3 designs, one for each format.
In most cases, the home page design is the most important one and we focus on that. In the planning phase we will have established the source of imagery and content and we start using that as early as possible during the initial design. Where content is not available, we use placeholder content that is a close match.
This phase also gives us the opportunity to introduce some headings and present some critical website wording. More on that in the "content section".
We reveal our ideas
This is the first chance for you to see what we've come up with. We present only selected web pages and we present them on paper. The design(s) we present here form a starting point for a discussion and serve as a reference for that and any possible design changes.
Your input at this stage is important. We want to you be critical and we want you to think carefully about what we move forward with. Usually a design is developed over time.
Accepting a design at this stage does not mean that we can't make changes going forward. In fact, design changes are frequently done during the development process, since a design on paper is different than the screen equivalent.
Implementing the design
We're go. Now we can get stuck into the nitty gritty. The design is now implemented on all device formats. We prefer to do this on the actual website build. We create the templates for all pages, i.e. we start working beyond the front page.
The design however is not completed until the website is complete. As we meet to look at the website during the development, we frequently make minor changes to things like margins and perhaps even colours and layouts.
Ideally we start using the final content if that is available. If not, we can help with Content Creation.
