Professional UI & UX Web Solutions/Consulting

What We Do

Web development is basically all we do because it's the only thing we're good at - we gave up rock star aspirations a long time ago. On this page, we will now attempt to come off as being technical experts about the technology we offer and use in building technological web development stuff. If we sound too techy while we do this, please forgive us...technically, you would almost have to. You will obviously notice that we couldn't find a proper spot to use the word "technician" in there somewhere.

• Web Sites - Design/CMS/Hosting/Analytics
• Web Application Development
• Interface Design (UI/UX)
• E-commerce Consulting/Development
• WordPress Development

Web Sites - Design/CMS/Hosting/Analytics

Web site designs are almost a commodity these days, but the most important thing is that you obtain one that is user-friendly - otherwise known as the "doesn't piss the customers off" design, or at least not too much anyway. Also important to a design choice is its ease-of-maintenance and extensibility to CMS (content management system) programs. That's where we come in - we have professional designers on tap, if you're so inclined to spend the bucks on an outright unique look and feel. But we can of course also assist you with one those nifty pre-built (still very nice) web site templates for those with tighter budgets. And yes, we eat our own cat food - this very site was created from a pre-built web site template for a mere $12.

Whatever web site design you choose, it of course still needs content - text, graphics and maybe even some cool videos. There are of course several different ways to approach this, but essentially the best route is to install and operate a CMS (or content management) system. We can take your preferred web site design and add a customized CMS system to it specific to your purposes, or we can install a pre-built CMS system (WordPress) and help you choose a design specifically made for that CMS system. Going the route of a pre-built CMS system is always cheaper, and there are literally thousands of ready-made designs available for them. Apologies, but we currently only support the WordPress CMS system. Let me reiterate that for the sake of keyword density, we do not support or work with Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, ezPublish or any other php-based CMS systems.

We're not really trying to be in the business of re-selling hosting services, but we are 12-year veteran customers of the web hosting business ourselves, so we know our way around a little bit. If you require assistance with web hosting services, to go along with your web site design and/or web development project, we're more than happy to accommodate. Our "sponsored" hosting packages are basically for our cost plus a standard maintenance/support contract fee. For a little bit of extra contract money, you'll simply contact us (and only us) when it comes to any technical support or other issues. And for those d-i-y types, we'll gladly help get you started and then promptly get out of your way.

The term "Analytics" may not be in everyone's vocabulary, but in the web site context, it basically refers to the measurement (in every way imaginable) of your web site's visitor traffic. There are numerous programs available for this task, with a lot of them also requiring a small technical education before you start gleaning any useful info from them. We recommend, support and use only a select few of these web site analytic programs. In our opinion, our choices are some the easiest ones to setup, understand and actually enjoy using on a regular basis.

Web Application Development

Not everything has to be a web site - just a novel idea, but why not create software programs using web site technology? Just kidding...of course it's been done for years. It's a brilliant idea when you think about it, unless you're talking about those internal corporate-type programs (also called Intranet programs), web applications are by definition accessible from any computing device connected to the public Internet. That is of course why we are now seeing the explosion of phone-based applications. To be sure, not all phone apps are built using web-based technology, but a large and growing portion of them are.

Web applications are practical solutions in many other ways of course. With the proper amount of attention paid to program and data security, web applications could almost replace any type of PC-based (OK...Macs too) software program. If you've got an idea to create (or convert) a software program using web-based technology, send us a quote request - we're all ears. We keep checking, but it looks like the Internet is not going away anytime soon.

Interface Design (UI/UX)

Although all web-based programs have some aspect of UI/UX (User Interface & User Experience) design built-in, not all address the optimization and usability of controls, features, message and intent - or an overall "obviousness" of purpose and flow, if you like. It's easy enough to build something that someone can be trained to use, but it's quite another to develop an interface where the purpose just becomes apparent.

Shopping carts (or checkouts) are a good example...lots going on all at once, very difficult to convey complete simplicity, yet all the info has to stay connected and completed in a certain sequence. We have built a few bad interfaces ourselves (who hasn't), but you almost have to before you can actually realize when it has been done correctly. If you've got a "usability" issue, like not converting enough sales with your current shopping cart screens for example, we can offer some real help in this area - we actually dream about this stuff.

E-commerce Consulting/Development

Easily one of the most important endeavors ever attempted on web sites - selling stuff. Despite the obvious security concerns that go with e-commerce, there are many other aspects of online shopping software that can cause frustration. Guest checkouts vs. registered checkouts, state tax tables, shipping method and carrier options - a whole slew of subjects that can make the whole operation quite complex. There are numerous off-the-shelf solutions nowadays that help to make the process much more tolerable, but even with these ready made choices, the configuration requirements can still be rather daunting for the beginner. And that's just the checkout parts...you still have product imports, inventory and order management, merchant accounts and payment gateway stuff to worry with.

Now that we've made it all look so bleak, we want to take this opportunity to state how we consider ourselves quite adept at the whole e-commerce thing. Whether you need assistance in setting up one of the ready made solutions, or you want a completely customized from-the-ground-up experience, we can definitely help. We have experience working with Magento CE, Magento GO, osCommerce, ZenCart and several other popular e-commerce solutions. Did we mention we've also integrated PayPal and Google Checkout payment options into existing shopping cart arrangements?

WordPress Development

WordPress is an amazingly fantastic platform right out of the box. It allows you to have a very sophisticated web site AND a very nice blog up and running in almost no time at all. But one of WordPress' most interesting aspects is its extensibility. This "extensibility" is more commonly known referred to as WordPress "plugins" and "widgets". We of course wouldn't be wasting time writing this paragraph if didn't have some expertise in this department as well.

If you have a special need for custom functionality that's not already available within WordPress, typically it can be addressed by adding a plugin or widget. There are literally thousands of ready made ones available. But if you can't locate one that does exactly what you need, we can help you with creating custom plugins/widgets to make it all work.