Many web application companies take a ‘one size fits all’ approach, and shy away from custom development. After all, custom development is hard: you need to liaise with the client, draw up a specification, come up with a fair price, create the code, and maintain it as the customer’s business evolves over time. On top of this, if you don’t plan ahead then you end up with hundreds of incompatible variations of your core application.

At it’seeze we’ve avoided the final problem through good application design – there’s just one version of the editing system, used by all clients no matter what custom code they have – but there’s no getting around the fact that custom development is hard. That’s okay though – people will pay for good solutions to hard problems, and it sets us apart both from other web application companies who won’t take on this kind of work and from the dreaded IT consultancies who charge eye-watering amounts.

The top of the Homeship home page

The brief

Homeship is a new service from the nationwide logistics firm MIW. Whereas MIW targets business customers, Homeship is aimed at the general public. Their brief was simple – create a website where potential customers can generate quotes and pay online – and they even had an idea for the application flow.

This sounds like a developer’s dream: the client has come up with the specification, so all you need to do is write it down and implement it. This would be doing the client a great disservice. As a developer it’s important to remember that while the client knows more about their business than you ever will, they’re not an expert on application design – that’s what they’re paying you for. After discussions with Homeship we came up with an application flow so simple that you can get a quote in as little as 30 seconds

The application

A prominent form on the Homeship home page lets you enter the collection and delivery postcodes. You’re then taken into the application, which consists of a series of simple forms. Let’s have a look at the first of these:

Providing details of the items to be delivered

There are two lines of instructions, but you don’t need to read them – it’s completely clear what you need to do. This is the key to good web application design: people have arrived on your website from a search engine, and they can just as easily go back and click on a different result, so your application had better be completely intuitive.

The quotation, with the option to proceed to payment

After filling in this form, you’re presented with your quote. You enter your name and e-mail address, and have two options: proceed to payment, or just be e-mailed the quote. If you choose to proceed to payment you’re asked for the remaining details – your desired delivery date, collection and delivery addresses, and telephone numbers – and then it’s off to PayPal to pay. That’s all there is to it.

The administration system

Let’s face it: administration systems are boring. That’s no excuse for them to be ugly as well. Sure, only you and the client will ever see it, but don’t they deserve better than monochrome Times New Roman? They’re going to be using this system every day, so seize the opporunity to make their lives a little more pleasant. Let’s have a look at a page from the Homeship administration system:

Managing zones in the Homeship administration system

The visual similarity with the front-end of the site is obvious, and this consistency makes it easier for Homeship employees to use the system. This kind of attention to detail is the hallmark of our custom development work, and it delights our clients.

Simple, elegant typography

Simple, clean typography, if done well, can have a greater impact and deliver a stronger message than type filtered with special effects. I’ve included some examples that illustrate the use of simple typography to great effect:

Omni TI Website

Digital Mash Website

Estate Black Website

Stylized, clever typography

With a bit of skill a designer can make the typography work in a slick and pertinent way. Over-styling or using naff built-in filters (Microsoft Word take a bow) can create unforgivable design disasters! Here’s some examples of stylized typography relevant to its subject matter:

Tips for typography

This would be a very long blog if I were to bore you with the rules of typography. So I’ll do what any self respecting designer with no time on his hands would do and give you some links to find out for yourself:

Getting Started – A Beginners Guide
10 Typography Tips
40 Killer Typographical Posters (Advanced Effects)

When developing a website it is really important to not confuse your vision for the website with what is going to work for your business and attract your customers. Should you sabotage your business website because of what you like, or what you think is important to you?

The Plantabox home page

Very often an individual within a company will only consider what they want to project, emphasise and shout to the world. This is a danger as very often it is not what the world wants or needs from them.

All too often the text content is directed not at the world online, but is instead directed at either their local or existing customers — or, even worse, it has no direction at all. The concept that anyone anywhere who has a computer may see their website and be a potential customer has just not filtered through.

So what should the website content actually say? Common sense should prevail, — what do you look for, what would draw you in? The website must be designed for the visitors, not the owner, if it is to be successful.

The home page

The home page should introduce your business its products and services without jargon, embellishment or waffle. This page contains the main navigation (buttons to click to get around the site) and this should be clear and practical. This page should contain text that includes possible search terms within meaningful sentences. For example, if you wnat to be found for producing pink fluffy slippers in the Devon area, a sentence such as “We produce quality pink fluffy slippers in the heart of Devon” will help the site to be found.

The Ink2Paper home page

About us

The visitor is looking for an introduction to you or your company — they need to know your pedigree. They want to know your experience and ability level in order to gain confidence that you can be trusted to provide the services they require, or can produce the products they need in an efficient and timely manner. Name-drop branded customers or partnerships if you can, or better still link to testimonial pages or full case studies to underline your experience and capabilities.

Products and services

Regardless of whether or not you actually sell online, thepromotion of your business, products, or services should be professional, informative, and concise but always designed to draw your visitors in.

Again think what you would want to know if you were the customer and knew nothing about the product. What is it? How does it work? Are there colour or functionality options? Is there any restriction on sale or use? What is the cost? Is there a delivery charge? Once they have this information they can make their informed decision.

You must then make sure that the site navigation leads visitors effortlessly with as few stages as possible through to the sale or selection of you as a supplier.

Subsequent pages

Further pages should all follow the format of being text-rich with keywords to aid good SEO, but still must remain informative and clear.

The recipe

So the recipe for a good and successful website is:

• Remember that the website is for your customers, and not for you
• Good design — attractive and visually pleasing
• Easy navigation — customers must be able to get to where they need to be easily
• Customer-based information — text content should be composed to be informative and helpful to the customer, and remember to create keyword-rich content to aid search engine optimisation

This year’s Christmas party was at Steps Bistro, a lovely little restaurant near Torquay’s harbourside. The food was fantastic and the cracker jokes were awful.

The whole gang together

Each year, instead of giving Christmas cards, we have a collection for Great Ormond Street Hospital. This year we raised over £30 to help keep the Christmas magic alive for their remarkable children.

The Secret Santa was a new addition to our festivities. After our Christmas buffet we gathered around the Christmas tree for the big reveal…

Great Ormond Street

We will report back soon with snaps from our secret Santa reveal and Christmas party shenanigans.

P.S. Try typing ‘snow’ while on our home page.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree!

I can see your halo!

Today’s popular minimalist web style emphasizes the need for perfect photography more than ever. Due to the minimalist styling and content of many sites the imagery used has to do the selling. We all want to be inspired and for most of us it’s not what we read that grabs the attention but the imagery presented to us that makes us drool.

Examples of sites with beautiful photography

I’ve shown some examples of sites that showcase the use of beautiful photography to sell their services of products. Colourful, super sharp imagery that spans the width of each of the sites instantly captures the attention of the audience.

Blue Pixel - New York

Nike Store UK

Brainerd Baptist Church

Planting the selling seed

A simple yet brilliant product that has been beautifully photographed — the products on the plantabox.co.uk website. Navigating through the site, the products are demonstrated in a stunning way. The setting is idyllic and the detail impeccable. The photography says to you “Mum would love one” or “that’d look great in the office”, such is the quality of the composition.

What to look out for

I’m no photographer, so I’ll leave all the technical details to the professionals, but I know a good image from a bad one. I also know what type of image sells a product: clean, crisp, detailed, with good lighting and relevant to the subject. If you have the budget then hire a professional photographer; you’ll be amazed how they can make things look so much more appealing to your target audience.

Sourcing the right imagery
If you don’t need product-specific photography then online image banks can be a great solution. We have access to a huge database of stock images to use when designing it’seeze websites.

Some good online stock image suppliers include:

• istockphoto
• alamy
• veer
• thinkstock

Alternatively, these sites provide many high-quality images for free:

• stock.xchng (Read the licence for each image very carefully)
• Creative Commons (Read the licence for each image very carefully)

In a word (or 29)

Whether you are selling high quality products online or promoting the services of the people within your business remember one thing: no one likes looking at an ugly mug.

Left to right: Kev, Jess Walker, Stephen, Jess Gully, Karl, Peter, Omar

Some of our staff are follicly challenged, so that meant fake moustaches all round, but we think you’ll agree that Kev’s and Jess Gully’s look particularly natural. There’s a moustachioed collection tin in the middle of the studio, and we’ll be raising money for the rest of the month.

The Jesses and Omar (who always looks like that)