Adster's Design Process & Philosphy
Adster Creative turned the impossible into the probable for us. They had the daunting task of converting 6 years worth of PDF based content into a navigable, drummer friendly environment for our readers...Sean Mitchell, Founder and Publisher - The Black Page Online
Having built over 500 websites in the last decade, Adster's got this whole 'website creation' down to a science ... well - more like a recipe. I guess you could say - it`s a recipe for building a kick butt, beautiful looking, functional, high ranking monster!
How does Adster do it?
A dash of php, 2 tablespoons HTML5, a pinch of CSS3 and a whole lotta hard work goes in to each and every one of our websites - some of which you see ... and much you don't. There's dozens of little things that go on behind the scenes at Adster when building your company a website and whether it's the research, design, content creation, coding or implementation, a big part of Adster's success is our experience, commitment to quality, and rock solid systems.
What's the whole process look like? Well...I suppose we can let the cat out of the bag just a bit. Let's explore the steps involved in building a site with Adster...
1. Design Brief / Info Gathering.
First we need to grab some basic info from you. Usually we'll send you a design questionnaire that covers some the following questions:
- What is the purpose of your site?
- What do you hope to achieve with your website?
- Who is your target audience?
- What are some sites that you like that we can use for inspiration in the design?
- What kind of color schemes do you like?
- What type of information/content will be included and available on your website
At this point we will need to gather the following: any pictures you may have of your staff, location, logo or products on a flash drive, CD or via email. It will help if you can supply us with some business cards, your physical address, company phone numbers and company address.
2. Planning / Mock-ups / Research & Wireframes.
Now that we've got a better idea of what you have and what you need - we need to create a rough visual layout that will determine what goes where on the site. We do this by:
- Devising an initial mock-up with you based on information we've gathered.
- Mind map where content will go and how the interface of the website will function.
- Domain procurement and registration if applicable.
3. Design of your website.
In this phase, communication between both you and Adster is crucial to ensure that the final web site will match your needs and taste. It's important that you work closely with us in exchanging your likes and dislikes.
- This stage will include 2 revisions of the initial design based off of our original design brief.
- Once the initial design has been created we will send you an image of the finished product for your approval.
- The same will be done for each inner page of the site (depending on how many pages your site will have).
4. Website Coding and Development.
Once all the design concepts have been approved by you - we take the 'visual design' (any additional revisions to your design will cost extra at this point) and do our magic to turn it into a super fast, functional and XHTML/CSS compliant site.
Not only that but we make sure your site looks awesome on a wide variety of browsers, operating systems and mobile devices (Yes this includes the iPhone!)
5. Testing, Quality Assurance, and Delivery.
We do our best to ensure your website works on a variety of browsers and operating systems including mobile devices. We test, test and test some more! By the time you recieve your site all the kinks should be worked out and it's time for your baby to go live and hand you the keys!
6. Publising / Adding Content.
Time to crack the hood of our CMS and take it out for a test drive! FLEX CMS was built to be incredibly easy to use, and a hands on training session with one of our experts is always included.
You'll now be able to edit and add content, pictures, blog posts and more! To save our clients money, the addition of certain content is usually done by you or a member of your team. However, if you're not comfortable adding or changing anything that's ok too - just let us know and we'll work something out.
6. Ongoing Maintenance & Website Warranty.
Can't view your website? Images not loading properly? Give us a shout and we'll do our best to get your site back to 100%.
- All our websites come backed by a 90 day guarantee
- For any clients in an active marketing package, your site will be monitored constantly.
Why so many Steps?
For Adster to consistently create a high caliber of web site for our clients, we 100%-absolutely-no-talking-us-out-of-it will follow the steps above. It's what we believe to be the 'Holy Grail' of web design processes and it works...because...
...Do you remember that scene in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark where the bad guy drinks from the wrong cup? It's not good, and is quite literally what happens to us if we do this wrong and don't deliver. Yikes.
