Clients trust us to provide digital answers, with our rock solid process & innovative solutions

1

Discovery

During the Discovery phase we sit with you and discuss your objectives for the site. We use a simple 5x5 grid to establish what you wish to achieve; up to 5 main objectives, with each objective having no more than 5 requirements to fulfil it.

The discovery phase is vital in planning how the finished website will be used by your visitors or target audience. We use this stage to determine your goals for the site, the metrics of your organisation or product range and the features of the site.

This process keeps all parties focused on what we are trying to achieve during the project, rather than how we are going to do it. Without taking time to complete the discovery stage we run the risk of delivering a website that does not fulfil your requirements. This phase is also important for you, as it will output a reasonable model of what you can expect from your site when it is finished.

The output of this phase is an agreed scope that will detail all that needs to be done in order to achieve the objectives.

2

IA/UX

Once the discovery phase has been completed, we start the IA & UX phase. This phase ensures that before we start the design and build, we have an agreed specification of what is to be delivered and how the site will function.

It is impossible to complete (or even begin in many cases) this phase without first understanding the objectives (from the discovery phase), and engaging with you fully.

The User eXperience (UX) component of this stage in the process focuses on how your visitors will use the finished web site. We focus on user journeys, such as moving through a series of pages that may represent e.g. a checkout process, or how visitors drill down through hierarchical page levels. Interaction with the site, accessibility and usability, and the effectiveness of different activities that may be completed on the site are all key areas of User eXperience.

The Information Archirtecture component looks at how the informational content of your site is structured and organised, and how best to present this information to your site visitors in an effective and engaging way.

The output of this phase is a series of documents including; a sitemap detailing the structure of the pages that make up the site and how they are connected, and wireframes which show the different components that each page is made of (this is especially important when dealing with interactions, e.g. a checkout process).

3

Design

The design phase adds creativity to the wireframes produced in the UX & IA phase; this is the stage when you will see what the finished site will look like.

With the first 2 stages completed properly the design phase is usually relatively quick since the unknowns and variables have all been previously identified.

The design phase is critical in determining how you, your company, and your web site are perceived by your visitors. We focus on your brand and how best to bring it to the digital stage. Our talented designer will work with you to produce a site design that is both attractive and consistent with your brand and values.

The output of this phase are the designs for each 'type' of page. Rather than wasting time designing and producing an image of every single page of the site, we produce a design for each of the different types of pages that make up the site, for example, page types may include; a content page, a category page, a product page, or a checkout page.

4

Build

The build phase takes the output from all of the preceding 3 phases and is when we actually start to build the site to work in a web browser. The reason we place so much emphasis on the previous phases is so that when we get to this phase everything is planned and there should be no surprises for us or you.

It goes without saying that we build and test your site to the very latest standards and best practices. Throughout the build we continuously upload the site to a staging server where you can review progress, test and feedback.

We build almost every site using the Umbraco content management system; this open-source CMS provides a fully-featured framework with everything you'd expect, but unlike many 'modular' CMS's, Umbraco allows us easy customisation and integration with other systems. But don't think that free open-source products are for geeks - Umbraco is incredibly easy to use, and well proven, powering some of the worlds largest websites including several for Microsoft.

And we know Umbraco well; many of our team are certified developers, and we're an Umbraco Certified Partner, demonstrating our belief and commitment to the platform.

5

Marketing

Launching your site to the public is by no means the end of the process. In the ongoing marketing phase we work with you to market your site or services in order to bring in new visitors and potential customers, and engage existing or past customers.

We will help the search engines find your site, ensure that paid online advertising schemes are performing to the best of their abilities, and constantly monitor your site analytics to highlight improvements and identify areas that may require additional targeting.

Although this phase has no specific outputs other than comprehensive and frequent reports, it is where we measure the performance of the site against the metrics and objectives agreed during the discovery phase.