Web Design Process at Branding Hatch
At Branding Hatch, we only create custom web designs. While there are off-the-shelf templates and do-it-yourself website builders, they are often very limited in their functionality not to mention the customizability, and some of them come with features not needed, causing bloated code and slow load speeds.
Goal Identification
Before coming up with a solution, we must set goals first. What is the purpose of the website? What goal or goals does the user have? And what goal or goals does the business have? Once we define the scope of the projects, we can fine tune the structure, pages and the content of the website to fulfill these goals.
Some of the questions we ask are:
- Who is the site for?
- What is the nature of your company or corporation?
- What is its core business?
- Who are your customers? Where are they?
- Are your products/services aimed at a particular sex/age/income range/group?
- What does it need to do?
Wireframing & Sitemap Creation
Wireframes are great tools for sketching and exploring design ideas, as well as communicating those ideas to colleagues, clients, and stakeholders.
We employ a Low-Fidelity wireframe approach that allows us to focus on solving problems and serving needs. So we avoid wasting time on aesthetics and layout in the early phases of the design process. Our philosophy is content first.
Sitemap
A sitemap is essentially an outline of the structure of the pages that will comprise the website. Planning the sitemap prior to working on any website design. It helps to have a clear idea of the website’s information architecture and explains the relationships between the various pages and content elements. Also, Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google to find your site’s pages—this is important because Google ranks web PAGES not just websites.
DESIGN PROCESS
At Branding Hatch, we only create custom web designs. While there are off-the-shelf templates and do-it-yourself website builders, they are often very limited in their functionality not to mention the customizability, and some of them come with features not needed, causing bloated code and slow load speeds.
Our CMS of choice is WordPress which powers 37% of all the websites on the planet. It’s free and open source and have its vast ecosystem along with plugins that provides endless functionality.
Mobile Friendly Design
Responsive Design
At Branding Hatch, every website we design is mobile friendly. With smartphone and tablet sales far exceeding desktop, small screens ought to be considered from the beginning of the web design process. Page layouts, navigations, text size, images and photos all need to be optimized for smaller screens and mobile devices that may have a slower bandwidth.
DEVELOPMENT
The developmental stage is the point where the web site itself is created. Our CMS of choice is WordPress. Elements such as interactive contact forms, calendars, events, galleries or eCommerce are implemented and made functional during this phase.
On the technical front, a successful web site requires writing valid HTML & CSS code that complies to current web standards, maximizing functionality. At Branding Hatch, we have the expertise to get under the code and customize the layout and enhance the functionality that may otherwise not be available through the front end.
Our CMS of choice is WordPress which powers 30% of all the websites on the planet. It’s free and open source and have its vast ecosystem along with plugins that provides endless functionality.
TESTING
Once the site has all its visuals and content, we are now ready to test the website. With increasing variety in technology and the devices available to view a website, we test everything internally, and allow the client an opportunity to test the site fully before launch..
LAUNCH
When everything has been thoroughly tested, it’s time to launch. Depending on the project this may involve setting up the server, going live or replacing the staging website with the actual website. After the launch, we still continue to monitor the website for a few months and make sure the website works the way it should.
