Web Site Design Colorado Springs

Journey's approach to web design has three major elements: graphical design (the look), technical design (the technology) and functional design (the usability).

Graphic Design
Legitimately, most people think of design as 'how it looks' - the graphical presentation. Web designers may refer to this as the 'look and feel' of the web site. Our approach to the graphical design goes beyond creating something that looks good, because everyone has a different idea of what that really is. Probably the highest consideration in our approach is your audience - what's going to touch them? Each audience is different and so we take a good look at your audience, your industry, your market sector... so we can specifically target what will work best for your business. We also consider your current marketing collateral. If you are already branding a logo and an image and you are not seeking to change, we will conform to what you already have working for you in order to strengthen your delivery and reach. The purpose of your web site will also drive design decisions. For instance, design for ecommerce has different considerations than design for a medical association website.

Each job is slightly different, but web site design usually involves a couple templates (sometimes only one - sometimes 3 or more), page headers and other accents used throughout the site. The templates ensure consistency in look and navigation, both very important for usability. Your design may also involve some animation - Flash design. Some sites are completely Flash. Some sites incorporate Flash navigational controls, which is very nice for affect. A side note here: if you are concerned about organic search engine positioning, an all Flash site or a site with a Flash introduction page is counterproductive.

Technical Design
Each graphical design will need to be translated into code that will display the website within a browser. This could be just html (most are) or it could be Flash, asp, cfm, .net, ect. Layout controls should be through the use of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) files. Journey uses CSS files to provide the style and layout controls for the entire site. CSS is the standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for web page layout control. CSS will also add an advantage over html table structures for search engine optimization. Many web developers are still using table structures to control page layouts. Other than a method discouraged by the W3C for web page layout, tables add unnecessary complexity and code volume. Tables will also result in higher maintenance costs - sometimes very significant. Journey's work ensures your website is in compliance with W3C standards.

General Components for Search Engine Optimizing. Although we understand that search engine optimization is not always part of the marketing plan, our designs include all the general components for search engine optimization. These components include: titles, meta tags, header tags, code reduction, links, content prioritization and placement, etc. When (If) it comes time for optimizing the web site for search engines, the site will already be favorably designed and will save time and future expenses.

Functional Design
Journey is well studied and experienced in cognitive user interfaces. Part of our dedication to this science is proven after 5 years of research resulting in the publication of a leading psychiatric assessment manual authored by the owner of Journey, David Ashley. See the Psychological Assessment Resources website for more details. We understand the importance of purposeful design that leads visitors down specific paths through the web site toward defined objectives. We take dozens of usability features into consideration when we build web sites. We know what works best and we do our best to keep up with the latest usability trends.

Contact Us
We want you to feel comfortable with our knowledge and experience. We can review your web site, emarketing strategy, future web site plans or any question you may have regarding the success of your web site. Call us to schedule an appointment - 719-638-9925.