Unlike most traditional media, Web sites are living documents. When created properly, they can be molded, refined and even overhauled with ease. They can expand to encompass new topics and new types of functionality. Most importantly, efficient coding practices make day-to-day maintenance easy to perform without compromising the site’s usability.
Your site is a virtual representation of you and/or your business or organization. At BeaconFire.net we strive to capture the essence of your goals with well designed visuals and functionality so your visitors will be compelled to buy, to sign up, to agree with your position or to otherwise act in whatever manners will benefit you most.
The BeaconFire.net’s design philosophy aligns closely with our clients’ expectations for how the end product will be used. We design everything to be accessed easily, used intuitively and to compel action.
Access
We are big accessibility advocates. A properly developed Web site should not rely on the visitor to use specific technology, software or specific devices. It should be easily accessed via any browser of the user’s choice, with a computer running the operating system the user prefers. It should load in a reasonable amount time on Internet connections of any speed. It should be functional on alternative browsing devices, such as PDAs, cell phones and tablet PCs and should reasonably anticipate the needs of hardware/software of the future.
Use
Ultimately, your Web site is not developed for you; it is developed for your visitors and the world to see and use. This is why the proper design approach is so crucial to a site’s success. We develop strategies that enable your visitors to navigate your site intuitively and digest your content easily – to get the most out of their experience.
Compel
Bringing people to your site and giving them something they can use isn’t enough. You have goals associated with your site. You might be interested in people purchasing products or services. You may want people to register and participate in your site’s activities. You may want to spread awareness for a cause. You may want maximum exposure for advertisers so you can profit from marketing advertising opportunities. Whatever your goals might be, the difference between good design and great design is how well your goals are achieved.
There are many steps involved in the design and developmet of a website. Much like building a house, you need to gather information, plan, prepare materials, construct and maintain. These are the basic steps we follow in order to create your final product. Keep in mind that the actual design process will vary based on your individual needs.
Strategy
We ask some very focused questions to begin every project for our discovery. This is aimed at uncovering your overall business objectives, your current and future audiences, your message(s) and visual appeal. This also involves seeing what your competitors are doing right and where we can improve based on their techniques and strategic decisions.
Plan
Using the information we gathered from our strategic discovery work we start planning and mapping out your site. This is the phase we prototype your design work just to make sure we’ve understood your needs and are taking things in the right direction.
Build
This is the phase we make final decisions regarding what, where and how your site is going to be deployed along with the technical processes that take it from prototype to a working and functional website.
Test & Launch
Here we polish up our work and attend to the final details and run your site through a variety of tests (validation, functionality, security, usability) to ensure it works the way it was designed and then we launch. Thorough testing procedures are crucial to a site’s success. Testing is overlooked by many design companies, and is rarely done to the standards we set forth.
