Reasons Behind Site Design & Development
This site is small enough to fit on a floppy disk, and fast enough to download in 1 minutes. Speed is key to successful user experience.
You may have noticed that our web site looks different to others you have seen. There are many good reasons for this. We wanted to create a site that is practical, attractive and compatible with all old and new web technologies. To achieve this, we considered either developing a graphically intense site, which demonstrate our graphic design abilities, or a more minimalist approach, which if done correctly, would convey it own elegance and provide some less obvious benefits such as faster download, clearer navigation and expandability.
Minimalist design reflects our company philosophy
After considering the trade-off of each design approach, we decided on a design with minimal graphics. We also felt that we would not use any web animation, such as Shockwave or Flash because they not only increase download time, but also require users to have certain software they may not have; it also adds an unnecessary feature, which may be a distraction from the content of the site.
Our choice for minimalist approach reflects our company philosophy that we would prefer creating and working in a company environment which removes unnecessary and superficial aspects which might otherwise sidetrack us from our goals.
Most web users surf the internet using a modem, which is a relatively slow connection. At Robert Leigh we have learnt that when browsing sites with many graphics, while using a modem, can take a long time to download. This is partly why we have not added unnecessary graphics.
You may wonder why on most pages there aren't any graphics at all. We wanted to demonstrate that its possible on the web to design a good looking site using basic techniques without graphics; in a sense we have shown-off our design and development abilities in creating something using fundamental techniques, while other site builders with less experience would resort to using more heavy-handed methods.
Cross media branded and printable
Our site design closely fits in with our company branding. The design is duplicated on all our media such as business cards and letterheads. The design features several visual cues, which is common in all our media. For example the colour scheme is consistent, as is the positioning of the logo. Common branding makes our company more recognisable and memorable.
When choosing a design we were aware of the issues of designing for print media and for the web. As a consequence, our design not only works well on screen, but is easy and inexpensive to print.
Technically superior
The code we use to create the site is extremely clean and robust. It complies with the strict coding standards. This is because we chose to write the code ourselves, rather than using a code created using a development program. The advantages of manually writing code over using development programs such as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage, are many fold.
Firstly, such programs automatically create pages with additional code, which is both unnecessary and cumbersome. Additional code can increase the time it takes to download a web page.
Secondly, such programs usually employ old code, which may not be compatible with many browsers; this can cause a page to be display incorrectly or perhaps not displayed at all. By manually writing code, we can ensure that web pages will run perfectly on old, current and future web browsers.
Thirdly, creating code manually allows us to organise it in away that is familiar to us, making it faster to correct, more flexible with the potential for further development.
Ultimately, we are in complete control over how a web site is created, therefore we can deliver to the highest technical standards. Other companies may take shortcut in developing pages by using inadequate development programs. We pride ourselves in choosing not to. In fact we challenge anyone to scrutinise and constructively criticise our technical work (See Coder's Challenge).
