Web Application Design

"Usability is like oxygen,
you never notice it until it is missing..." unknown author

Time and again web developers ignore the basic principles of user interface design. Not only are many sites difficult to use, but the information contained in them is stale, irrelevant, or hard to find.

Claero Systems employs those rare people who have both creative, analytical, and technical talents. This is a necessity for efficient and successful web development.

The first step in creating a web page is to develop a strategy for your Internet presence. It is important that you understand what is involved in maintaining a site, and how it can benefit your business.

Our designers enjoy the challenge of creating sites for the Internet with presence and impact. Equally of importance is the development of clear, no-frills, easy-to-use web sites for internal or private use. We can help you achieve your vision.

We can provide dynamic content for your sites and develop the connectivity to leverage your existing databases of information. We can add rich multimedia content for high impact sites or presentation marketing materials

Designing and building a web site is only the first step in successfully leveraging the Internet for your business; dynamic and up-to-date content can be more important than the design itself. Claero Systems can help to keep your site fresh and up-to-date.

Many businesses underestimate the effort required to maintain a website after it has been developed, let us help you to ease this burden.

We can provide expert advice on registering your domain, managing search engine registrations, and choosing the right hosting solution for your requirements.

Electronic commerce is one of the world's fastest growing industries today; let us help you understand the possibilities and what benefits exist for your business through the use of B2C (business to customer), B2B (business to business), and B2E (business to employee) applications.

Most people are surprised when they begin to understand the possibilities of leveraging web infrastructure for internal applications - let us help you save money and provide better service to your employees at the same time!

what next?

Call us now for a free consultation at (403) 242-2667.

Building A Website

Based on our experience, there are at least four things that you need to establish before you can build your website:

The audience and goals of the site.

list each audience (for example: the public, customers, employees, partners, investors)
for each audience, identify your sales and marketing goals, be concise, be clear
start with an open brainstorming session with as many people as possible, ask people from your audiences what they want to see, prioritize, summarize
for each goal, try to establish how you will measure your success

The site content.

this is the actual images and copy that will go on each page in your site
try to establish guidelines for images and copy to keep things consistent
identify each page in the site and who will provide what content
identify how often the content will likely be updated and by whom
there are people who you can hire to write content, but Claero Systems recommends that you write the content yourself, and then hire someone to clean up the style, grammar, etc. if needed
establish if you need translations: who, how, and when they will be completed
get all the content, set deadlines, give out prizes, do what it takes, this is often the most difficult step
a great source of inexpensive site media (photos, videos, drawings) is www.istockphoto.com

The site architecture.

decide on how the site will be navigated (global menu, main menu, secondary menu, private menu, etc.)
write out the options for each menu
create an outline or mind map that shows all of the pages in your site, and how they are organized under the menus
identify special features of each page (e.g. forms, multimedia, where does the page content come from?)

Graphics design and branding.

if you already have branding done for business cards or brochures, this can be a good start
hire a graphics designer or communications firm to help with this aspect of the project
as a general rule: web site developers are not well suited to graphics design, and graphics designers are not well-suited to building web sites
you can spend thousands on this, or just pick a pre-built template and add your logo and colours
this is the least important aspect of your site (nobody likes to hear this, but it is true)

Try to keep the following points in mind:

the most important aspect of the site for you is that you accomplish the site goals
the most important aspect of the site for your audience is that they can quickly and easily do what they need to do (find information, buy something, share something, etc.)
if there is no compelling reason (value) for people to come to your site, they won't come
if you want something from your visitors, you have to provide them value (intellectual value, entertainment value, service, etc.)
put obvious information on the first page (store hours, address & phone number, etc.)
getting yourself found on Google and other search engines is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization, to do it right you need to hire an expert who specializes in this work, it is very expensive and the cost has to be justified by revenues generated by your website

Here are some of the things that a good web developer does:

(cross browser compatibility) build the site so that it looks and behaves the same on different browsers and different operating systems
(mobile) if applicable, can build the site to work on mobile devices
(templating, CSS) build the site in such a way that the look and feel and styles can be changed quickly and easily across the entire site without having to modify every single page
(usability) make sure that the site is easy to use
(standards) understand and use the latest web standards