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The Internet is after all a visual medium. Custom web site design
should
take maximum advantage of the the medium to
convey
your
message. We believe that the only way for your website
to be
visually
attractive, relevant and unique is for its design to
carefully
blend
together the “feel” of the products/services you offer
with
the
nature
of your primary target audience and to brand this
blend by
stamping
on it the uniqueness of your own personality,
or
corporate
image.
Achieving this three-way blend will make your web
site truly unique
– the difference that will make
it stand
out
in a crowd.
This difference cannot be achieved by using standard
templates,
which tend to homogenize the appearance of websites.
Only custom
web site design can deliver true differentiation.
Zizi Volford-Hull prides herself in taking the time up-front
to understand your business, its uniqueness and its market in
order to create for you a web design that sets you apart from
the crowd.
Combined use of words, images and motion
While visual image is of vital importance in custom web site design,
it is also very important that your message is clear. To achieve
this
clarity, your web site design must take advantage of the flexibility
of
the Internet. The combined use of words, images and motion
to
convey your message gives the Internet the same flexibility
as
TV advertising, except that you are not constrained by time.
Your main messages should be delivered in concise, clear language
– even in headline format. Those messages should be reinforced
by the use of images or photos that are “real” – i.e. directly
related
to your products or services. “Movies” can be used to attract
attention, either emphasizing the words or giving visual examples.
The important thing is to be clear about what message your
website design is trying to convey and to be careful not to have
too many messages at once.
Present messages in layers of increasing detail
Paradoxically though, custom web design has the beauty of being
expandable. Potential customers who have a passion for detail, a
desire to truly understand your business, need not be constrained.
By clever web design and the liberal use of “bookmarks” and “links”
you can provide in a custom web site design an amazing amount of
detail. Remember though, that you have a varied audience - those
who like detail versus those who want to quickly understand and
decide. Your website design needs to carefully consider both by
providing the information in layers of increasing detail – brief
clear
messages to convey the essence of your product/service offering,
on the one hand; but on the other hand, you should also provide
access
to detail for those who want to know more. Do not force
those
who want quick understanding to wade through all the
detail to
get your point.
We use this layered approach to structure the information on
your website.
We have all heard the expression “user-friendly”. This is particularly
important in web site design. There are so many web sites out
there, so many competitors, that if your web site is hard to
use, the visitor will quickly get frustrated and move on. It
is very important that in the web design process you spend time
to put yourself “in the shoes of the user”. Ask yourself what
it is they most need to know, ask others to tell you what they
expect to find, get friends
and family to navigate around the site. Make sure that your site
has none of those infuriating “dead-ends”.
We take special care with web site navigation. We spend extra
time trying to imagine ourselves as users of the site. We also
take extra care to ask “outsiders” who were not involved
in the web design process to audit our sites from an “ease of
use” viewpoint. Ease of use is a vital part of our custom web
design philosophy.
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