|
Website
Design, Re-Design and/or Maintenance . . .
Philosophy
Portfolio
Philosophy
RHA is
flexible in designing pages. Depending on what a client
wants I can do almost anything. I do however have some
general principles that I follow, particularly for those
clients who do not have a prior set of requirements in
mind.
"I pride myself on
giving my clients a high degree of customer service
and that personal touch that few other website
designers are able or willing to do."
Introduction:
A man
once said that everything is a compromise and there are
no right answers to any problem. While I flatly reject
that statement on a philosophical level, in the arena of
web design he may well have been somewhat right. When I
compose webpages, I utilize a simple and direct style
that I believe to be beneficial for readers, the
site-owners, future webmasters, and anyone else who will
have a hand in any given site. Things are done in a
logical way not only on the surface, but also behind the
scenes. The sites I make are tuned to what I think the
audience will be and not designed to hype my technical
prowess.
Design Styles:
Every
webmaster that I have ever met has at least two points
of view on what makes a good website. I have never known
any of them to agree.
A few
small examples of how webmasters differ are as follows:
Some
webmasters believe that the latest, greatest, and most
flashy page possible is the absolute best way to go. On
the other hand some webmasters believe that any page
that uses anything more than simple text to inform is a
waste of time and bandwidth.
Still
others believe that if you do not have background music
then the site is not all it can be. Of course another
group suggests that background music is 'tinny' and
interferes with whatever the reader is listening to
while surfing the web.
Some
people believe that 'plug ins' and Flash or high-end
Java enhanced sites make for the best viewing while
others consider these things a passing fad and not worth
the time to code.
So where
do I stand on the above? Well, not to sound too wishy
washy, but it totally and completely depends on the
audience for any given site and the site owner's
preferences.
When I
design a website I take into account the fact that
whoever the target audience is should be the very first
consideration.
Download Speed As An Example:
When
designing pages for a progressive rock music station,
your target audience will be young college students.
Most of these individuals will own leading edge systems
complete with multi-hundred dollar video cards, super
fast processors, and a very minimum of a 56k dialup
connection. Most will have DSL or cable modems.
Therefore when designing a website for such users it is
important to keep in mind that this audience is not
likely to balk at large downloads nearly as much as an
"average" user.
On the
other hand if I am designing a site for a herb business
it is a good bet that this audience will have computers
that are 2-4 generations behind today's top of the line
system. This is not a slight against them it is just a
fact that they dump more cash into their other things in
their lives than they do into their computers. This type
of audience will not want to sit around picking their
noses while a 1.5 megabyte page spools through their
2400 modem! It only makes sense that the pages of
different target audience sites MUST be designed
differently.
While the
target audience is a big design factor, we also take
into consideration the wishes of the owner of the site.
If they want something huge and graphic intensive, but
their target audience is likely to have old equipment we
will discus it with them, but in the end the owners have
the choice of what they want.
Other Considerations:
Besides
download speed, I also take into account: browser
compatibility, easy navigation, visual appeal and
simplicity.
I could
go on and on about what I do and the plethora of
decisions and compromises I make in any given site's
design, but I hope you have gotten a general idea of the
types of things I consider. A website is really never
fully done. There is always room for polishing and as
customers get better systems and the applications become
more powerful all websites must be updated from time to
time.
Summation:
In short
RHA tries to make websites that are easy to navigate,
easy for future administrators to work on, and pleasing
to the eyes and minds of both owners and readers. I
really do pride myself on the "personal touch" that few
other website designers can or are willing to do.
Portfolio
Current
Projects:
Past
Projects:
|
