Modular, high quality code
All the code we produce is written by our in-house developers and is self contained. This has a number of benefits:
- Reduces the likelihood of errors
- Makes it quicker, easier and cheaper to make future changes
- Reduces testing time
- Makes the site easier for transition between developers
- Removes the dependency on third party code
- Makes the systems code base more logical
- Reduces code bloat
This means for us, frameworks such as Bootstrap, Foundation and jQuery are out and instead we hand craft each line of code to produce a system that is fast, secure and logical.
Intuitive user interfaces
Managing users’ expectations goes a long way towards creating intuitive interfaces. To ensure our products are as intuitive as possible from the outset we turn to the principles of user interface design:
- Be clear
- Enable interaction
- Conserve attention
- Empower the user
- Focus on a single action
- Keep secondary actions secondary
- Provide a natural next step
- Be predictable
- Be consistent
- Be familiar
- Be flexible
- Have a strong hierarchy
- Use colour to highlight but not determine
- Progressively disclose information
- Assist when assistance is needed
When these principles are combined with data from user experience testing, we can develop products that users find truly intuitive.
Latest coding standards
In order to ensure that our code is of the highest quality we stick tight to the latest standards. Whilst this has benefits for us in terms of coding speed, this also gives you more options in terms of what you can do with a website or application. The latest standards we work to are as follows:
- HTML 5
- CSS 3
- ECMAScript 6
- WCAG 2.0
Content management systems
Managing your content has never been easier. We specialise in Umbraco for managing your pages and Merchello in conjunction with Umbraco for eCommerce systems.
Both systems are open source so there are no recurring fees to pay unless you want advanced features for your eCommerce site. Both systems also have a wide developer community so you can rest assured that there are many developers in the market that can work on your system. You will never be tied to a single agency.
The Umbraco CMS is a fully-featured content management system with the flexibility to run anything from small campaign or brochure sites right through to complex applications for Fortune 500 companies and some of the largest media sites in the world.
Umbraco is built on the .NET platform which is supported and developed by Microsoft.
Cross browser and device testing
The constant progress of technology and it’s capabilities means that we now ensure that the user’s experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of their browser or device. This allows us to, for example, add in subtle animations or transitions to enhance the experience on an iPhone X yet ensure that a user on Internet Explorer 8 is able to still access the same information without the enhanced experience. This is commonly referred to as graceful degradation.
We can test on the following browsers and devices:
- Google Chrome - Windows 10
- Google Chrome - Apple OS X
- Google Chrome - Android 4.4+
- Google Chrome - Apple iOS
- Microsoft Edge - Windows 10
- Safari - Apple OS X
- Safari - Apple iOS
- Firefox - Windows 10
- Firefox - Apple OS X
- Internet Explorer 8 - Windows 10
- Internet Explorer 11 - Windows 10
Accessibility testing and enhancement
Ensuring that your website or application is accessible and inclusive to all users is very important to us and so we design and develop with accessibility in mind. This ensures that users will be able to access your content regardless of disability or access method. We work to government and web standards, ensuring the website or application is tested against the WCAG 2.0 guidelines and compliant with relevant legislation.