Responsive Design

Our primary target market were users whom activly use tablets, so we expected a large amount of the site usage to come from those devices. Developing responsive websites (those which work well on different devices) doesn’t mean designing for phones, tablets, and desktop computers separately – it means catering for every possible outcome as a single experience. Not only does this ensure every user sees a website that’s optimised for them, it also helps to future-proof the site to work for the devices of tomorrow. This approach brings many benefits to the end user and is recommended by the Official Google Webmaster Blog.

Define, Design

The project began with a series of design workshops to establish objectives, success criteria and target audiences. The primary goal was to reach consensus on what we were trying to achieve and then generate ideas on how this could be done. Initial ideas were quickly visualised so that the team could assess their potential and likely development cost. The website also needed to reflect the existing brand identity so our design team worked with an existing design agency to evolve the brand collateral to make it work effectively online.

Owning the site

Rather than handing over a completed site, we focused on delivering a suite of adaptable components and templates that, together with a Style Guide, would allow the client’s in-house marketing team to upload content directly. We believed our time was best used elsewhere in the development process, and that by working closely with the client in this way we could help to ensure that the marketing team had full ownership of the project by the time we went live.

In addition, we supplied a structured training programme that began early in the project with hands-on workshop sessions and remote screen-share conference calls. We also provided a set of video screencasts covering the key content management system tasks so the client always had something to refer back to.