About

We are a web development group that specializes in dynamic web 2.0 development, but we also do design, production, and copy enhancement.  We build sites that cost less, work more efficiently, and reach more people.  We utilize web standards, including usability and accessibility to provide every unique site with a memorable personality.  Our sites are always designed using forward compatibility, which mean they excel not only in today’s browsers, screen readers, and wireless devices, but in yesterday’s, tomorrow’s, and next year’s.

Why we do it

You might not know it, but 99% of of websites are obsolete. The signs of decay are creeping up and starting to surface. Your site might look good to you, in a specific browser, but how does it look to your audience?  Truth be told, your expensive website from 2005 has begun to fall apart; all of that carefully engineered functionality is beginning to fail.

How we do it

  1. We design with usability in mind. A visitor should never be left wondering what to do next. High conversion rates require a clearly defined and intuitive funnel that leads the visitor from where they are to where you want them to go.
  2. We understand the concepts of Search Engine Optimization and keep those concepts top of mind when we design a web site.
    • We use valid standards based semantic (X)HTML markup, CSS layouts, unobtrusive JavaScript and DOM manipulation. This process makes content easier to read for users and easier for search engines to find.
    • If we observe any inherent SEO issues with your site, including copy-related issues, and we bring them to your attention so they can be addressed.
    • We integrate our design with your web copy so the visual and written elements work together to lead the visitor to the ultimate destination.
    • We ensure that each page delivers the information a user would expect to find there. If we notice inconsistencies between the content on a page and the presumed purpose of the page, we bring those inconsistencies to your attention so you can decide what action should be taken to address the issue.
  3. We incorporate W3C disability design standards into the sites we create, or the specific standards required by the laws of the country your web site operates in. This ensures legal compliance and a wider potential audience.
  4. We believe in teamwork. That’s why we check our ego at the door when we’re working on a project. We realize that your copywriters, SEO consultants, and marketing staff are all “partners” who need to work together seamlessly in order to deliver a web site that raises your company’s visibility and meets your conversion goals.
  5. From a technical standpoint we use PHP 5.x, MySQL, jQuery, semantic (X)HTML, CSS layouts, and unobtrusive JavaScript to make the magic happen.  Interested in another language or even another technology?  Feel free to contact us, we have experience with too much to mention here and we would be happy to let you know if we can help you out!

How you benefit

Your site is presentable not only to your favorite browser(s), but your mother’s favorite too! Using clean, valid, semantic markup provide technical benefits, but it makes your site easier to maintain and cheaper to develop, test, and deploy!

Designing with standards means you don’t have to create multiple versions of your site to serve multiple browsers/platforms.

  • No more browser/platform specific versions
  • No more ‘basic’ versions to accommodate old browsers
  • Need a mobile site? No problem, you already have one! Just add an alternate CSS style sheet and you’re in business
  • Need to print your content? No problem, another style sheet not another entire page/site
  • Worried about Flash being displayed on mobile platforms? No problem, just provide alternative content on the same page instead of building another one

As your site becomes lighter, more responsive, and provides your users with a higher performance experience you reap the benefits.

So now you’re seeing why valid standards based semantic markup, along with CSS, and unobtrusive JavaScript/DOM manipulation allows your content to be easily deployable to a variety of mediums including mobile devices, browsers for people with disabilities, and devices that haven’t even been invented yet! New browsers come and go, but your site remains accessible to all.

History

When we first started developing websites back in 2003, standards were just getting off the ground. We barely knew what clean, valid, semantic markup was (let alone what it could do to make your site more favorable to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!). Back then if you wanted your site to work the same in Netscape and Microsoft’s 3.0 & 4.0 browsers you had to work in up to 4 different scripting languages and do it all inline.

It all sat on top of a mountain of complex HTML tables (generated by the WYSIWYG of the day, Microsoft Frontpage) which made them up to 60% heavier than they really needed to be, eating up valuable bandwidth and money. Doing a facelift, or redesign meant re-purposing all of the content (and scripts) and ended up being much more time intensive and costly than needed.