imageshaper | creating user-focused websites

Be clear on your business objectives for the site(s).

Customize and target the content to your primary users, for initial visits and repeat visits.

Build a useful and usable site, which is easy to read and easy to navigate - but above all one that's interesting!

Write credible original content, but update it regularly, so it's always topical!

Use graphics sparingly, but keep them original.

Engage the user through compelling interactivity,so you prove to them that you value them as visitors/customers.

Optimize your site as much as possible.

Above all ... Give your user a reason to come back!

Create a memorable and experiential website

If you already have a website, we can perform an evaluation and produce a series of recommendations to improve the performance and effectiveness of your site for your key user types. We've an established working relationship with a team of experienced consultants, including designers, technologists, optimisation specialists, and writers.

Overview phase • taking a critical look

This evaluation looks at the overall functionality and features of the site, such as:

The value of content to meet the needs of your primary and secondary users, and understanding their expectations from your site.
The navigation to ensure consistency, ease of use, and a sense of intuitiveness.
Accessibility (browser, platform), graphic & page load times, server reliability, etc.
Design, including the aesthetics, use of color, images, layout and composition, fonts, buttons, and menu design.
Information content, such as the hyperlinks, current content, writing style for your target audience (primary and secondary), and accuracy.
Search Engine Optimization, to make sure you're using the most effective methodology, including page titles, links, keywords and page content.
Capturing information for a customer database.
Does the site deliver a customer (user) experience that differentiates your brand.

New websites • the fundamentals

If you're looking to build a website for the first time, then it's important to appreciate some fundamentals. A site with a stunning home page with poor underlying architecture may look good, but could end up being a classic case of form over function. A site that has great useful content that's impossible to find, quickly becomes useless! Think about how to make the navigation intuitive, in other words - buttons appear where they feel they should be, where the user would expect to find them.

In summary, a good website:

Should be both useful and usable. This is what's called user-centered design. The result is an effective, compelling, and usable website where you have the right balance between features, functionality, and ease of navigation.
Should communicate your core message and content clearly to your identified target market(s), with credible, original content in as many forms as possible.
Should have a high impact, both visually and technically to ensure you're continuously building brand recognition and loyalty.
Should initiate an interactive relationship with the user to encourage them to come back, which makes your site memorable forging an emotional connection.
Should provide valuable, timely information to the user - not a lot of useless data!
Should be updated regularly with new content to ensure it's continuously indexed.

So before we start, we'll work with you to:

Study the competition - evaluate the best of breed.
Understand your potential audience (your users) and their needs, if necessary by creating persona profiles for each user type.
Decide on the most appropriate platform.
Create a structured approach to the information architecture (how users will move through the site), by creating a map illustrating the IA.
Select the right metaphors (organizational, functional and visual).
Choose the best resolution (screen sizes).
Develop layout grids and mock ups, using wire framing to plot potential paths through the site that meet user intentions.
Write/edit the content.
Build the back-end (supporting database to capture visitor information).
Build, test, and finally launch.
Update regularly to keep your site optimisation effective.