Design

A consistent corporate image is paramount for any company fighting in today's competitive markets. A professional image and first impressions can go a long way when attracting clients. Maintaining a site that is truely consistent with your company image, with a professional finish goes a lot further on a medium such as the internet where there is little else that can be used to set rival businesses apart. Our experience in web design will allow us to create a design that truly reflects your company's image and target market.

The Planning Process

The initial phase of drafting a design will involve gathering some examples of existing marketing material so that we can provide you with a web presence that ties in with your existing company image. If you require new original material; or if you require new marketing material we can work together with a design agenct to create an all-in-one package to fit your requirements.

Web Site Accessibility

Have you ever been annoyed when you print a web page by the amount of paper you waste from unneeded garbage, such as ink-hungry header images, and navigation sidebars? Well this is because most web design companies do not consider web site accessibility. We take measures to ensure your website is as accessible as possible, making it printer friendly, and user friendly for users on mobile devices. In today's modern world, PDA's and mobile phones are becoming an increasingly popular method to look up information, and failing to comply to web standards blocks this large audience from viewing your website.

In October 2004, the Disabilities Discrimination Act was extended to cover web based media. This means that new websites that provide services to the public should conform to 'section 21' of this guide. We stick to accessiblity guidelines set by the W3C. This means that our sites will be functional by those who depend on tools such as screen readers which might be used by blind people. Websites that fail to meet basic guidelines outlined by the Disabilities Discrimination Act could potentially be at risk from legal action in extreme cases; should a site is considered to be 'discriminating' against disabled people through lack of accessiblity. For further information, visit www.drc-gb.org.

If you have an existing site, Virtual Function can audit your website against 'Web Accessibility Initiative' accessibility guidelines, and will provide a detailed written report of our findings. We can also make your site comply with the relevant standards.

Web sites that are built with accessibility in mind have many other advantages over their counterparts. They are faster to load and much easier to maintain

Information Architecture Analysis

A website can be the best looking website in the world, but if your clients can not get the information they need easily, then the website is totally useless. Many well respected multinational companies have quite often make this mistake by flooding their web pages with a myriad of disorganised information on each page. Not can pages be overwhelming with useless information, but they can have poor navigation.

Our understanding of user expectations will allow us to structure a site in a way where information can be broken into digestible chunks, where the user is clearly presented with choices they expect to see and information they want to find. With the fierce competition that exists on the web, a friendly, well structured website will go a long way.

We can audit existing web sites, and provide a written report with suggestions that would improve user experience.