Having an attractive and well-designed website for your business or organization creates an opportunity to meet and even exceed your user's desires and needs.
What is Website Design?
Website design is not just the style of the buttons, or the font type and size, it's how you make the user feel. Users should feel that they are being guided through an enjoyable experience. Are they capable of finding the information they need quickly or efficiently? Are the text and visuals adding to their experience or hindering it? Is the interaction intuitive and easy to navigate?
In addition to the user, good website design should consider your own organizational goals. Are you driving users to the right place to increase your conversions? Are you allowing them to easily move through your funnel by offering strategic placements of buttons and call-to-actions (CTAs)?
Our website design process ensures that we keep the user and your organizational goals top of mind.
What's your website design process?
Business Research
Research and discuss your current business model, services, products, branding, organizational objectives, website goals, website audience and behaviour. Analysis to include goal set up and performance, technical set up, user flow, time on site, site speed, pages per session and will serve as a benchmark to measure new website against. Google Search Console review will provide keywords that drive traffic to the website.
UX and Heuristics Evaluation
For larger websites and teams, we often plan UX (user experience) workshops with stakeholders and invested parties (either virtual or in-person). In these workshops we identify priorities, goals, a website ecosystem, user personas and stories. As part of a heuristics evaluation, we will review the existing website and provide advice for the new website, identify scenarios, and provide a powerpoint report.
Content - Copywriting and Visuals
After we complete the website research phase, we will start to flesh out your website's content. At this stage, we don't need to finalize all the pages and their content, but at least develop the content schedule and identify priorities. If requested, we can provide copywriting services, in-house photoshoots with third-party providers or find stock images (free or paid). If SEO is of interest, we can provide a training on writing optimized copy, and/or ensure we implement these best practices if we're writing the copy ourselves.
IA - Information Architecture
We will plan the architecture of the website taking into account your volume of content, the types of content, the naming of pages and links, and the user navigation. We will produce a site map and work with you to identify what content is being kept, updated, removed, and added.
UX - Wireframes
Wireframes serve to describe details required for design and act as a guide to graphics designers and developers to determine exactly how the layout will be achieved. For each wireframe, we will identify the layout, menus, content, and call-to-actions. The User Experience (UX) is also important to ensure that your site visitors can find what they need where they expect it in a natural and intuitive way.
UI - Mockups
This is where the creative work takes place. Our graphic's designer will prepare the user interface (UI). This consists of mockups that apply your branding, colors, and styling. Mockups are necessary for pages that are deemed of high value in terms of user experience and conversion. You will then review the styling and provide feedback before we move to the build phase.
Interested in web design services?
Our Work
Over the last 11 years, we have provided services to 256 client websites. Many clients bring their existing websites to us for help or bring us in for consulting services, but 125 of them were designed, built, and launched by us!
What our clients are saying...
Our collaboration with U7 resulted in a website that is converting visitors for us at about 70%-80% (no joke). We run an immigration consultancy and if we can get prospects to our website they almost always become a client. The design of the site fits our strategy perfectly, which is to create an instantaneous personal connection with and establish the bona fides of the principal of our company, Renata Brum. I don't know if the site could be any better than it turned out and it is performing way, way beyond our expectations. I presume the savvy team at U7 will do the same stellar work for your business as they did for ours.
- As an active listener, engaged team leader, and expert web strategist, Jayson brings years of experience and knowledge to any project he works on. I've collaborated with U7 on multiple projects. Their client-centric approach, and dedication are key drivers in their ability to successfully deliver on time and on budget. I would recommend Jayson and his team, as their professional yet flexible management style create a stress-free client experience.
Thank you to U7 Solutions for partnering with us on the CHEO Dream of a Lifetime website by taking on the development of the website. The team at U7 architected a leading edge platform with WordPress on the back-end and Gatsty on the front-end. They were able to bring to life the new design and empower the client with an easy-to-use content admin experience. Looking forward to future collaboration!
Frequently Asked Questions
1What is a wireframe?
A wireframe is a structural representation of a web page that outlines the content and how it is presented (slider, table, graphic). Our wireframes do not have any colour or imagery, everything is a placement to understand what we need. For example, a picture will be needed to the right of the text, and a table below that. This way we can map out the structure of the page and identify what assets need to be developed or sourced for the next stage (mockups).
2What is a mockup?
A mockup takes the structural representation of a webpage (wireframe) and adds all of the branding elements: exact copywriting, images, videos, colours, and fonts. The purpose is to design the exact display of the page before building it, which gives our clients the opportunity to provide feedback before we spend hours building it. It helps plan appropriately and avoid costly changes down the line. Plus, most developers do not have an interest in the design aspect and work best with direction to produce an aesthetically pleasing and marketing focused webpage.
3What if I don't like the end result?
We ensure that throughout the process you have the opportunity to review the content and direction. We will absolutely make changes to the wireframes or mockups before we get to the build.
How can I get started?
Discovery call
We’ll walk you through our discovery form over the phone or video call to gather the input we need and ensure we're the right fit for you.
Detailed quote
Our sales team will develop a thorough and detailed quote that isn't one cookie-cutter solution. It will be tailored to your exact needs and business goals.
Project launch!
If you believe we're the right fit for your project, we'll get started with our journey together!