Web Design & Development Services
Website Design
Whether you’re an old pro or taking your first steps onto the web, we can build you a website which is good to look at and easy to use.
Speed
As a general rule, a web page should load content within six to eight seconds. Any longer and your potential customers become frustrated and annoyed.
In this age of high speed broadband access a lot of designers forget that there are still people out there using modems who have as much money to spend on your site as everyone else. There are also mobile phones and other wireless devices which have restricted bandwidth available.
All our sites load extremely fast because we pack our code as tightly and efficiently as we can. We only use images where necessary and we don’t add unwanted scripts and animations. Gimmicks will not make people trust your content or buy from your site. A fast, slick and fluid experience will do that.
Design
We take a lot of time to consider the best placement for page elements. When it comes to the web it’s not just a case of putting things where they look good. Wider factors have to be considered such as how much screen space is available, where users are used to finding certain features and how their eyes naturally scan across a page.
We put a lot of effort into creating sites with great flow so that users find moving about simple to achieve. We produce clean, classy designs without clutter so people know where they are and what they’re doing.
Compatibility
Our approach to web design is to make our sites compatible with as many devices as possible so that no users are turned away.
All our sites are programmed to be accessible to devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, screenreaders, braille keyboards, printers and more. We test across a wide range of browsers and platforms to ensure your site will look good under any circumstances.
In cases where it’s just not possible to deliver the full experience - outdated browsers, for example - our pages are designed to gracefully degrade. This means that while they may appear in a more basic style the overall functionality is intact and all your content is available to view.
We also make sure to add print styles so your site looks good when it's printed off too.
Reduced Spam
Everybody hates spam and one of the main ways you can get it is by exposing your email address on the web.
Spammers use bots which scrape web pages for email addresses and add them to their databases. For this reason, we always avoid the use of plain text email addresses.
Instead, we use a contact form which allows site visitors to send you mail but hides your address from spambots.
If you insist on having a plain text email address on display we’ll create it as a graphic. This allows it to still be visible but removes the possibility of spambots reading it. It’s probably only a matter of time before some clever spammer creates software capable of reading images though, so the contact form method is advised.
The End Result
Ultimately you end up with a site that looks great, performs brilliantly across all platforms, is easy and intuitive to use and which helps you keep up with your competitors and gain new customers. See How We Build Websites for more information about the process of creating a site from start to finish. See the portfolio page for examples of our web design work.