I have been pondering on my career recently. I’m working through the concept of next steps and new challenges. What do I want to dedicate the next seven years to? The last 10 years have been a huge challenge. I spent the first seven discovering what it takes to build a strategic design agency and now that I’ve left it behind I can see, with hindsight, all the good and bad choices I made along the way....
A few minutes thought now can save you years of stress when it comes to your business website. Often small and medium businesses will be sold a site that is good for the developers recurring revenue rather than their own. Knowing the process before you start will help you avoid getting a website that's not quite what you were hoping for. This guide will hopefully help you make an informed choice about the different ways to launch a website....
So now you understand your customer has a problem that needs to be solved. And they want to solve it using a little brain power as possible. You know WHO your audience is and WHY they are at your website. The next step is to write your outline script....
Your story is the unique thing that sets you, your business and your product or service apart from anyone else. This post will take you through the Storybrand framework, created by Donald Miller to help you to better articulate your brand message with clarity and simplicity. I’ve seen it improve conversion for websites, email open rates and most notably shift people's perceptions at how marketing works....
A clear and concise homepage structure will help convert your visitors into customers. So many websites are style over substance. Packed with design features, they do well for the designer who created them but neglect to inspire action in your customers. Now more than ever, the clarity of your home page is key to doing the heavy lifting for your business....
Over the past few years I have seen a huge spike in the amount of website projects I’ve taken on. The question of “how much does it cost to build a website” is one of the most popular questions I get asked. And the answer you don’t want to read is…. It depends.But in the interest of quick wins, here’s the quick answer.Design and build it yourselfIf you want a normal website, you can build it yourself using some kind of online builder like Weebly, Wix or Squarespace.Using these services is as easy as building a Powerpoint presentation. But remember...
Being on the cusp of a new large scale project here's a few questions I thought worth considering...
In preparation for a clients new website I was conducting research around underlying frameworks. I was glad to come across the strategy by Tony Ulwick, (CEO of Strategyn) known as the Jobs-to-be-Done theory.After reading more about it I quickly realised that this theory is the precursor to some parts of UX theory. Its the original way of tackling User Journeys – a process I adopt which compliments my approach to web design using the Minto Pyramid Principal.I'll try to briefly explain how. Minto Pyramid Principal With regards to website design, I describe this method as a way of creating a logical content structure to...
Mini screens for surfing the web seem to be here to stay – at least for the next few years. During this time I'm campaigning for a hamburger revolution.In the last two months I have designed and built three new websites. All of which were hugely different in their design approach and business need.I don't adopt a mobile first approach to web design – and the reason for that is that I find it unexciting to do so. Very few mobile websites are exciting. They are functional but not exciting. And getting clients excited needs to be part of the...