Web Design Services
Introduction
Today a web site is the main shop window to a company's products and services. For some companies, it is the shop as well.
A well designed site is critical to create a good first impression and also to bring back visitors again and again.
Accessibility
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 which came into effect in 1999, requires that all services provided by a company, including web sites, must be accessible to persons with disabilities. Types of disability include both physical and mental impairments. For instance, a web site must be accessible to a sight impaired person who uses a screen reader/speech synthesis tool to "read" the pages out loud. Also it must be accessible to people using limited capability browsers such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs).
To comply with the act, web sites should be written to conform to at least Level A of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
All RedGreenBlue sites are written to be at least Level A conformant and can be made AA or AAA conformant on request.
Development Process
The process typically takes six steps:
- Consultation
This can take place either at your work location or by phone. The goal is to understand your business better and how a web site could improve your results.
- Proposal
The proposal for the site would include a rough design and site map. Costs and schedule would be given for creation of the site plus ongoing maintenance.
- Layout
The first layout would typically be a mock-up showing the colours, graphics and navigation features. This would be reviewed and any changes made before any pages are physically created.
- Authoring
HTML authoring is the process used to create the web pages based on the agreed design. I normally use Macromedia Dreamweaver for this but could use Microsoft Frontpage if the client required to fit in with an existing site or instance.
- Content Loading
Once the layout and navigation has been agreed, the page content is created and uploaded to the hosing site for final review.
- Announcement
The site is registered with the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc) and announced to the client's contacts with an email or mailshot.
Pricing
The cost obviously depends on the complexity of the site and number of pages required. But as a rough guideline based on past experience, the average costs for different types of sites are shown below. Note that these prices do not include hosting costs which may be arranged by the client or paid by RedGreenBlue and invoiced separately.
| Type of Site | No of pages | Approximate Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Small Personal Site | 5-6 | from £250 |
| Company Brochure Site included basic feedback form | 10-20 | from £500 |
| Lead generation site with multiple feedback forms and restricted areas | 20-30 | from £1000 |
| Shopping Cart/E-commerce with database generated pages | 20-30 | from £2000 |
Maintenance
RedGreenBlue can provide maintenance for adding new content and amending existing content. This would be charged at an hourly rate and could be performed on a monthly or annual basis.
Alternatively, clients can maintain the site themselves. For this I recommend the Macromedia Contribute software which is a web browser based editing tool with file locking and reviewing tools. A free 30-day trial of the software can be downloaded from the Macromedia Contribute page .
Free Consultation
If you are interested in discussing your requirements, please contact us for your free no obligation consultation. Our pricing is highly competitive and can be fixed price or on quotation. And don't forget, the initial consultation and proposal is free.