Websites are like icebergs

What users experience on your website is just the tip of the iceberg. The user is drawn into the beautiful user interface, engages with the intuitive navigation, devours the well-written content and the focused call-to-actions drive him complete your inquiry form - success! That perfect user experience journey is the result of hours of unnoticed work that happened below the surface.  

Before you can launch your new website, a lot of work first goes into making that new website float. What are the website’s goals, what are the points of conversion, how will users interact with the website, what are the key features, what will differentiate us from the competition, what will the user experience look like… and on and on.

So where do we start with a new website project? The foundational layer for us is a discovery collab. This collaborative session allows us to dig into these critical questions with you first hand so that we can make informed decisions throughout the design process. The next layer is information architecture and user experience design. These two work hand-in-hand to define the structure of the website and allow us to iterate rough interface layouts quickly and define the raw look and feel, confirming navigation, calls-to-action and other features in the process. The next layer is visual design or user interface design. This is where people really start to get excited because they can ‘see’ what the website will look like, but we’re not done yet. Once the interface design is approved we start creating the responsive front-end HTML and CSS code, test that code in all modern browsers and device platforms and when it passes our standards it is time to integrate those front-end templates with the back-end content management system. This layer of the project allows you or your marketing team to manage and control the content of your website. Every site we build sits on either CraftCMS or ExpressionEngine - both content management systems provide an excellent user experience for our customers and ensure their website is secure and stable for the lifespan of the website.

This sounds like a lot of work doesn’t it?! Besides the layers of work outlined above, there are hours of meetings, weekly stand-up calls, dozens of minor deliverables, and hundreds of emails that go into a project.

Like icebergs, no two websites are the same. What works for your company doesn’t always work for another and vice versa. Every customer has different business needs and website goals. We are here to help. Let us know what we can do for you.