Website Design and Development

Some people call this a creative brief, others a project definition. Whatever you call it, in this stage you need to clearly define why your site exists.

Here, you should aim to answer questions about your intended audience and their values, the specific goals and preferred outcomes of your site, the metrics you’ll use to measure and define success, and the type of communication strategy that will attract your audience. Part of this will require you to study your competitors.

Answering these questions will help you better understand the scope of your web development project, including the features you want to include, the number of pages on the site, the timeline of the build, and the likely costs associated with the build.

Now it’s time to design! During this stage you’ll create a guide for all further work.

The wireframe and mockup stage will include the creation of an architectural sitemap, one that spells out the relationship between all the pages you’ve chosen to include. It will also make clear how the user will navigate through the pages, enabling you to visualize a design that is both functional and beautiful.

Good designers are innovative, create products that are easily and intuitively understood by their users, and have a good sense of aesthetics that fits in with the brand of the company the website is being built for.

Depending on whether we’re building a new website from scratch or updating an existing website, at this point we’ll find ways to seamlessly integrate the content into the wireframe and design.

This will include visual elements, the words written on the page, the placement of CTAs and buttons, the color scheme, videos – in short, everything a user will see and interact with. The aim of our team will be to say more with less, to lead with visuals, to have clear and concise copy, and to keep things simple and accessible for visitors.

Depending on the nature of the build, we will also integrate SEO-friendly design and content elements (including a detailed keyword strategy underpinning the effort), which goes a long way towards building the organic reach of your site and boosting user engagement with your brand over the long term.

This is where the technical strength of the BlueHat team comes into play. And while it takes a skilled developer to translate the design ideas into code, their job is made easier if the previous three steps are done properly.

Google loves an error-free website, so while building it we’ll ensure that all the elements work perfectly together. We’ll focus on things like site-load speed, mobile optimization, clean architecture, all done with the user experience top of mind.

The final part of this stage will include testing, in which the new site will be pre-launched in a way that makes it only visible to those with the appropriate link. Here we will make sure that all bugs, design elements and UX issues are addressed and cleaned up before the site goes live.

After the site has been tested by the appropriate stakeholders and approved, it’s time to go live! However, in our experience, since there is no rarely an instance in which the design is so perfect that nothing at all needs to be adjusted, our team will be on hand to address feedback that will come in from the users visiting the site.

It almost goes without saying, but because websites are constantly evolving, post-launch we will also be on hand to help your team maintain the website, facilitating updates to content, and broken links, or implement any changes and necessary adaptations to the site related to changing business priorities.