The activity of extending engagement with existing and prospect customers always finds its way home, to your website.
Technology can be overwhelming very often – and so this blog entry is to give you quick insight to the process, what is required of you in having your website created and lastly some advice from the trenches
First up, get comfortable with the notion that working with creatives as well as developers can alone make for an interesting insight into different design processes, personally this article sums up for me what I believe is the bottom line about the design process on designing for the circular economy http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/design-circular-economy-disruptive-technology in particular
“… designers need to develop functionality and service-based thinking, as well as knowing about products, technology and material science, and we should never lose sight that in the end, almost all products are designed for people and their needs.”
To keep the details interesting, dig into this infographic
Hints
While business is often the art of war, websites add an extra paradoxical element to this – collaboration. A website is a well orchestrated symphony of many moving parts nowadays, involving many persons and technologies, hence I recommend that whomever leads the project (or administrates) uses a collaboration tool with some project management aspect that allows you at least viewing access.
Why? Art has no schedule? Well budgets are finite and deadlines are a necessary evil, design teams should use a system as any experienced designer knows, as no matter how simple a website is initially – it always has future ambitions that up the complexity and subsequent need for team support tools.
Hygiene List:
Term in marketing meaning the industry competitive bar
Security – website have built in firewall
Content Management System – allows you to manage website content yourself without needing a degree in programming, you merely need to know your way around a word processor.
Sustainable Hosting – Make sure that where your website resides that the hosts at least purchase carbon credits to offset the pollution caused hosting your site, and then get a “this site is green” mention on your website – cost is no more a factor in this regard.
Social Integration – not just social share and follow buttons but auto posting and sychronicity between your website and your social pages like social sign ups.
Less is more – minimalist designs and less clutter increase speed and subsequently search rankings, never mind the ease of use customers expect.
Analytics – setup to count all traffic from your website as well as your social pages.
Bonus Tip
Have an email address using your company name not a free email address – it is the professional thing to do.
