www.thewebtailor.co.uk
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www.thewebtailor.co.uk |
Good web design is never noticed!
In a perfect website, users, whether they're customers making purchases or members of a community exchanging advice and information, would never notice the design of the site they are using. It may be heretical for a designer to say so, but the aim of web design is to bring the content of a site to the fore, and use design elements to emphasise the structure of the information on the site.
Clearly, there are some sites - those devoted to art or other aspects of visual design - where strong graphic elements are appropriate. But the general rule is that less is more. A website that makes you pay attention to the graphic effects, the buttons, the rollovers and the illustrations is taking that attention away from the reason why you visited the site in the first place.
The skill of the web designer, then, is in remaining invisible.
Whatever software or hardware a visitor to a website is using, they should be able to make use of the information contained within the site. It defies belief the number of times a website will proudly proclaim that it requires a particular browser or (worse) a minimum screen size to work properly. Imagine walking into a shoe shop and being told that you ought to be at least 6' tall to use the shop properly! No website designed by thewebtailor will make such demands on users, even whilst making maximum use of the developments in authoring technology, like cascading style sheets and dynamic html.
Setting up a website is a scary business. You want it done properly, and you need to be able to trust your designer. thewebtailor recognises the dangers: there are plenty of websites already which don't meet their owners' objectives, either because the designer wasn't listening or didn't understand. Websites built by thewebtailor are your property from day one. We'll put our views and recommendations to you, but it is your site. You will make the decisions - including the decision about when the job is finished. We promise that we won't walk out on you with a half-finished site.
Finally, good web design is tested design. It is simply not good enough for a designer to rely on their own sense of what works. Neither is it appropriate for the owner of the website to judge whether it is going to be successful. The only people who can do that are users. Usability testing is an essential part of the design process, yet it is one which most web designers skip over. Usability testing for a website is surprising cheap, and it is the single most important thing you can do to make your new site a success. All new sites designed by thewebtailor include usability testing in the design programme.
Web design from thewebtailor is charged at a flat rate of £35 per hour. The initial discussion, while we determine your needs, and how we can meet them, is free, and we start every job with a detailed, costed, work programme. We will provide you with ongoing reports as the project progresses. And your bill will detail all the work we've done for you.
Some web designers will quote a fee per page, or per file. We don't do this, because we think it leads to two destructive tendencies: the client has an understandable desire to minimise cost, so crams information onto a single page, that ought to be separated, or the designer seeks to limit the project to the quoted number of pages, even if the structure of the content requires more. With thewebtailor, all we charge for is our work. If your site needs one page or one hundred pages, we'll tell you. So the charges below are guidelines only, to help you get a feel for the budget involved.
Discounts are available, for non-profit organisations, community groups, and projects we particularly want to work on. Don't decide you can't afford thewebtailor - e-mail us for an initial discussion now!
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