What is good communication?
In a few words: Good Content, Clear Typography, Appropriate Imagery, Fast Download.
What's wrong with the web?
Everyone's heard of the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, You Eediot!). The web offers designers virtually unlimited options when it comes to decorating their pages. And many designers jump in and load their pages up with fancy graphics, garish colours, new types of links, etcetera…
The result is often a confusing eyesore which has the end user (the customer) in a quandary. Often enough, navigation is counter-intuitive, download times skyrocket and layout inconsistencies abound.
Oh, and Internet Explorer, enough said …
Websmiths pay attention to the task at hand. Communicating your message!
We have great faith in time-tested methods that are proven communicators.
Typography
Follow a few basic typography 'rules' and you can turn even your average Word page into an elegant, clearly understood document which guides the reader's eye from one point to the next.
Of course, we also have industry-standard desktop publishing software to take your typography and page layout to the next level.
What's your point?
Keep paragraphs and chapters concise, tackling one point at a time. Your readers won't punish you for making it simple for them to absorb what you have to say. In fact the web is a fantastic medium for separating your distinct ideas via hyperlinks between different pages – this is a wonderful example of evolution.
Get an outside eye.
The best writers rely on their editors to help them identify anomalies that have crept up during a long project. It's natural that, having spent intense time involved in the details of a project, you will lose some of your vision of the big picture. This is where having a 'fresh pair of eyes' look over your work becomes invaluable.
Find someone who doesn't know the subject matter very well, they'll be an ideal test of whether your ideas are clearly communicated. They will also help you to identify areas where your writing is great, and where it may become a bit inconsistent. Don't take their comments personally!! This process will genuinely improve your final product. Which is bound to impress someone on the next rung of the ladder.
If you've spent a great deal of time and effort investigating, sorting, collating and writing your material, why would you undermine that effort by failing to carefully edit and clearly typeset your final product?
Ultimately, we believe that a careful balance of easily understood convention, combined with significant, meaningful originality will produce the best, longest-lasting results which differentiate positively from the competition.
Talk to a Websmiths consultant. They will probably ask you numerous, basic (even apparently stupid) questions. This is not because we are idiots. It is because that we believe that the best way to serve our customers is to find out the best approach before we start designing and building.
A bit of time spent defining the issues before we begin will, more often than not, result in a better, more efficient production time and ultimately a better product. Come to us asking for a website, and you might find us recommending a far simpler, more cost effective solution. Could that be a bad thing?
Some companies won't say this. Most probably don't really believe it. Yet we believe and say that a satisfied client is the best thing for our business. We rely on happy customers for our survival. They tend to come back and also recommend us to their contacts. We're not here just for today and tomorrow. We're here for the long haul.
So send us an email. Chat to us. It won't cost you anything and you may just find that we have a few simple ideas which will help you differentiate and succeed.
