Designing a great website starts with developing an understanding of the needs of your website’s visitor. Our approach to design starts with the development of a set of “personas”. These are profiles of the key visitor groups which we refine in consultation with the client’s team to obtain an agreed working set. We then look at the brand’s existing digital presence, the organisation’s offerings and its key competitors to establish a draft site map. This draft site map is then tested against the needs of the site visitor groups.
At every stage of this process we always consider how effectively the site is communicating the brand’s key messages and how smooth the user journeys it provides are. We ensure that the site structure agreed has the appropriate calls to action in place. The needs of the search engines are also considered at this stage, as it is always preferable to develop the site’s content structure to support the organic search engine optimisation of a site in the early stages of the design process. This ensures the site contains and gives due prominence to the information which human visitors require while ensuring that the site ranks well for those search terms which the client’s prospects will search for the site under.
We then present the site’s key pages as a set of wire frames. These are used to determine the detailed composition required on each of the key pages of the site. These wireframes form a crucial part of our approach and ensure that the content and functionality of the site pages are thoroughly considered and tested to optimise the user journeys, before the site is conceptually designed.
Once the wire frames of the site are agreed, we begin the conceptual design process. This phase allows the exploration of how the visual aspect of the brand and its key messages are communicated. Assembling the conceptual visuals of the key site pages allows us to check the user journeys have remained clearly signposted and the site functionality is simply presented and remains intuitive. The conceptual designs also allow the client to share amongst their internal team how the site will look and operate prior the site being created. This early visibility allows them to achieve wider approval of the site within their organisation at an early stage in the project.
Once the designs have been approved, the site will be created and populated in readiness for user acceptance testing. The site will be then be available on a “proof URL” (behind a username and password) to allow the client to share this access to the site with their team and to gain experience (once they have completed their training) in the use of the CMS. The proofing phase allows the site functionality to be fully tested. The site, once it gains final approval, can then to go live. Black Pig provides a warranty with all of its websites.
Over the last twenty years Black Pig has created many hundreds of websites in a broad range of technologies and interfaced these with a number of clients’ internal systems including CRM, HR and SOP systems. We have also integrated websites with online services such as SAS CRM systems. Our experience covers a wide range of industry sectors and includes e-commerce websites, intranets and extranet sites.
Today’s digital audience will demand access to your website no matter where they are, so all the websites we develop are responsive and deliver a great user experience whether viewed on a tablet, mobile phone or a desktop browser.
At Black Pig we understand that you want the ability to change your website in house and so all our websites have content management systems. We have expertise in a range of CMS systems but principally we work in the most commonly used open source systems (WordPress, Drupal, Umbraco), but our approach is flexible and we’re happy to recommend the most appropriate system for your needs or work with your organisation’s CMS of choice.
CLIENT COMMENTS
The development of the new website was a demanding task involving a high volume of content and seven languages. From the start Black Pig showed a strong commitment not only to developing an accessible and cohesively structured site, but also to incorporating added features important to the brand, such as video and You Tube integration. It was crucial for a project of this size to be supported by strong project management, which Black Pig provided –with a smile! The launch of the new site was a great success and as we develop our online presence further with tools such as Social Networking, the team’s continued enthusiasm makes them a pleasure to work with.