Our Design Philosophy
"Be useful. Be functional. Be brief." Gerry McGovern
After more than a decade of public use, the Internet is now regarded by the majority of its users as simply a tool - to buy products, to find information or just to keep in touch with what's going on in the world. Users want to be able to complete what they regard as important tasks - and they want to complete them quickly
This means that the functionality and content of a website should take priority over the way it looks. Web 'design' is really about the designed-in functionality of a website - not the design, or look, of its pages. Unfortunately, many web designers become obsessed with the design of their pages - how clever or innovative they look and how impressed other web designers will be with them - rather than with how their visitors will interact with them.
The key principle underlying all website design is to keep things simple. In fact, the more 'design features' you're tempted to add to a web page, the more likely you are to spoil an effective working design and, at the same time, interfere with the key messages that you're trying to get across - and the tasks that your users really want to complete.
This doesn't mean that websites have to be ugly, but they should be built and designed around what your visitors want to do as simply and straightforwardly as possible.
The underlying principle is: be clear about what you want your visitors to do, and design your site to let them do it easily.