Web Development
We design and build beautiful, standards-compliant websites that are compatible with all current browsers and platforms. In addition to uncluttered, attractive user interface design, we also develop dynamic, interactive sites with custom content management systems and web applications.
You can see some of the websites we've created on the Portfolio page.
User Interface
Our user interface designs are attractive and inviting, with an emphasis on clear, easy-to-understand navigation and layout. We avoid the use of intrusive gimmicks, preferring usability over novelty. A website that uses Flash animations for everything might be impressive the first time, but it gets old quickly, and becomes a nuisance for people who just want to get information or access other features of the site.
Many designers overlook the details of website design, such as type styles (headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.), margins, and table colors, resulting in sites that don't turn out as nice as the mockups. There's a lot more to web design than page mockups. Beyond basic site graphics, a successful website needs a consistent and appropriate color scheme, and a finely-tuned CSS stylesheet for positioning and styling all the elements of the site. We have extensive experience in layout, typography, and color selection, enabling us to develop color schemes and stylesheets that perfectly match the rest of the site design. Here's the color scheme for our own site:
Content Management
If your site will be updated often, you need a content management system. Instead of editing HTML files by hand, you manage your site using a web application, which stores your content in a database. We develop high quality, custom content management systems using the PHP language and MySQL database server, tailored to meet your specific needs. We can also integrate other PHP-based web applications, such as message boards or banner ad systems.
Our content management systems support several key features.
- Localization
Your website can support multiple languages, allowing users to select their language (this is done automatically by current browsers when the site has been set up correctly). Text (and images containing text) can be added for each language without having to maintain multiple copies of HTML documents.
- Themes
Full theme support allows you to create multiple site designs and easily switch between them. Alternate themes can range from a simple replacement of graphics and colors to a full-blown redesign of the layout. You can offer your users a choice of themes, or change your default theme for special occasions.
- Modularity
Our site engines have a modular architecture designed with future improvements in mind. If you want to add support for new types of content, or enhance the features of your site, we can do it cleanly and efficiently, without having to rewrite significant amounts of code, saving you time and money. Modularity also greatly enhances reliability, making bugs less likely to occur, and easier to track down and fix.
- Integration
We can seamlessly integrate other PHP- and MySQL-based web applications, making them look and feel like the rest of your site, instead of "tacked on". Site maintenance is made simple with a unified administration panel and database. You can add powerful applications such as message boards, without having two separate user databases and session management systems. We make it all work together, with minimal modifications to the application, making it easier to upgrade to newer versions while maintaining compatibility with the rest of your site.
Standards
Nobody wants to visit a website that has visual glitches or broken features. There are standards that help ensure websites work in every browser, but there are still many poorly-built sites that don't display or function correctly for everyone. Our websites are developed with strict adherence to today's web standards, including XHTML and CSS.
The following badges indicate that the page you're viewing complies with the official W3C standards (click them to view the validation report).
The W3C standards also provide the basis for making your site accessible to a wider audience, including browsers that only display text, or have limited support for images (such as the ones on PDAs and cell phones), and users with disabilities, using Braille readers or speech synthesis. A site that adheres to the standards can be made accessible to everyone.
Compatibility
While the standards provide a starting point for ensuring compatibility, they don't paint the whole picture.
A lot of designers create websites using "WYSIWYG" editors. These programs are easy to use, but produce sloppy, inefficient code that doesn't comply with W3C standards, often doesn't work correctly in all browsers, and takes longer to load. All our HTML and CSS is written by hand, and carefully optimized to ensure maximum performance and compatibility.
Modern websites often have interactive elements powered by JavaScript, which is another common point of failure for site compatibility. All JavaScript used on our websites is carefully developed and tested. We don't copy and paste code from other sites; we write our own, and we make sure it works in all current browsers.
We ensure that all aspects of our websites work in the following browsers (including newer versions). As much as possible, we also support older versions.
| Mac | Windows | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camino | 2.0 | ||
| Chrome | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Firefox | 3.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| Internet Explorer | 6.0 | ||
| Opera | 10.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 |
| Safari | 3.0 | 3.0 |
Technologies
We have extensive knowledge of, and experience with, the following technologies.
- HTML & XHTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- PHP
- MySQL
- Apache
- Unix & Linux