Go-to-web Strategy

1. Designer
2. Front-End Developer (also representing backend development)
3. Content Writer
4. Web Marketer
5. SEO/SEM
6. Support/Metrics

1) Designer

• Creates visual concepts of brainstormed and agreed UI strategies with input from the other team members to properly integrate knowledge and stakes of others
• Integrates the stable branding priorities of the organization into the design choices for an individual piece while using the uniqueness and differences in the piece to evolve the overall brand of the organization of branded product

2) Front-end Developer

• Based on approved mocks, creates accessible standards compliant and valid XHTML/CSS markup and styling of the designs. These are used at CMS templates and other presentational materials (email, interactive campaigns)
• * Backend Developers - The front-end developer acts as the bridge between the front-end (UI/UX) team, and the backend application developers to harmonize the needs of the UI/UX team with the application programming priorities of the backend team. Ideally, the limitations and structures of backend applications should be transparent to the User Experience

3) Content Writer

• Is knowledgeable about the media of the Internet especially regarding to the short attention span, SEO (keyword density, titles and meta description importance and content structure), marketing (Introduction, talk-to-client needs, call to action) and come up with content that is complete, short and precise that fits in the agreed visual design and can achieve its objectives with and without visual aids (images, audio etc)
• Can look at the micro level focus of a given document (subject, keywords, call to action, etc) and write content, while paying attention to the macro-level role that a given document plays in tieing together the purpose and goals of an individual document to the purpose and brand of the entire website

4. Web Marketer

• Along with general marketing techniques, the web marketer understands the unique characteristics of the Internet marketing medium, and he/she adapts the organizations marketing strategies and campaigns for the web.
• Works with the content writer, and the visual designer to create marketing materials and messaging that fits the agreed visual design and branding, and that is effective in informing the audience and converting traffic.
• To gain search engine visibility and traffic, he/she may work with the SEO/SEM to target and convert traffic from various sources (SEM/SEO keywords, affiliate websites etc) into viable prospects and leads

5. Search Engine Optimizer

• Pays attention to the accessibility of content created for the web; not necessarily for all the reasons that justify global accessibility concerns, but specifically to ensure that all content created is accessible by search engines for indexing and ranking.[see more details in the below-listed document on SEO]

6. Support (Metrics and Web Analytics)

• The main function of this role is to turn the collected quantitative and qualitative Search Engine and user feedback information, and to convert it into hypotheses that can be the subject of case studies, or decisions on how to better create and target the go-to-web strategy for better returns
• This is not specifically one individual, but a role that can be performed, and may be best performed by more than one individual because it requires hypotheses, analysis, comparison, and brainstorming.
• Search Engines provide some free tools that supplement paid web metrics applications. in particular, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer provide valuable insight into how each of these major search engines crawl and classify the content on your website. Using this tools gives an analyst an idea of the keywords that the site is highly ranked for, and the ones that are driving traffic. In situations where pages might be ranked for the 'wrong' keywords and bringing in irrelevant traffic, the problem cab be easily identified and steps taken to adjust accordingly
• The above-identified tools also make it possible to see where there are technical errors on the site, and correct them

Are you of the thinking that if something looks good is a respectable web browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera, or Internet Explorer, then it is satisfactory (especially if the code also validates using the W3C validator)?
Have you ever tried to browse the web using a screen-reader such as JAWS or Opera Browser/Audible?

Building an inaccessible web
Content and application accessibility is not being regarded with as much importance as it deserves. Currently, too much focus is put on the lowest common denominator, and investing time and resources in features and implementation strategies that will get the biggest bang for the money and time is a commonly tolerated compromise. This Web Design and Development strategy is a direct result of letting business interests drive the way of the Internet. It is undeniable that the business community and capitalist market forces are responsible for the growth of the Internet from a scientific experiment, to the previously unimaginable medium that it is today. However, catering only to what will generate high dividends for share-holders can be lack of visions.

An example of this short-sighted drive to cater for the majority at the expense of the non-traditional and minority site visitor became clear to me in two situations where the CEO of a mid-size company asked this question when he was told that web applications built for the federal government had to be Section 508 compliant so that blind members of the public could use them: "Blind people do not read, and should they use the Internet?" In another situation, a senior project manager at another company remarked that to reduce server overhead, a new application would be built so that the last bits of XSLT logic to transform raw XML data to the UI (user interface) markup would be done in the web browser. When told about accessibility, and the use of non-traditional web browsers such as PDAs, text-only, and other browsers that are not able to parse XML/XSLT, he angrily responded that "We are building a rich application that will work with the latest browsers (IE6+, FF, Safari), opening the Web Application to non-traditional browsers is not part of this project and will have to be scoped separately as an enhancement"!!

The above-two are examples of some level of ignorance, disregard for Web Accessibility, and quick frustration with the otherwise meticulous process of making web sites and applications accessible. I cannot deny that it is slow, and anything but easy to attempt to code a site, and as opposed to previewing it in Mozilla Firefox or Internet explorer, to open up JAWS, or turn off the monitor and preview/browse the website/application without any visual information. This is also the biggest reason to make web-sites and applications accessible to blind, low-vision and otherwise disabled users.

No one can deny the the W3C placed and has continued to place importance and dedicate time and resources to developing the necessary techniques and infrastructure for designing and developing accessible websites and applications without compromising the eye-candy that we often rush for at the expense of accessibility. We therefor have very weak, or no reasons at all for not building accessible web applications and sites.

Currently, there may be relatively little motivation for business management to spend the extra time and resources required to make applications accessible. I once worked on a project that was launched despite my protests and warnings that the UI markup was not valid HTML or XHTML. The 'important' thing at that time is that the application was relatively stable and quite usable in Internet Explorer version 6, IE7, and Firefox. My protests seemed to many to be the passion or a lone and narrow-minded purist with little regard for the financial consequences of delaying the project so that the issues could be fixed and bring the web application to scope in terms of accessibility and code validity. The disregard for valid code soon begun to make the applications behaviour unpredictable, unstable, and difficult to quickly update because what initially seemed stable and usable became unstable when small changes were made

Web-site branding, templates or themes control the visual presentation of web content. These mainly consist of a layout structure and presentation specifications for text and the graphical elements of a web page. In Drupal, the presentation of content is served and presented through a theme. Every template/theme we design is intended for use by the client it is built for; we do this purposefully to preserve the client's unique brand. The client may modify and use the template on multiple web-sites. If you want to buy a drupal theme template that is exclusively your own, contact us for more information

Pricing for Drupal Themes and Templates

Drupal is very flexible and therefore usable in varied ways; understanding the configuration, taxonomy structure, as well as the ways in which the client intends to populate content in the various template regions is instrumental in creating a template that is intuitive and pleasantly branded. This approach to Web CMS template and usability design requires our involvement in the conceptualization process of a template to create a theme that works well and looks good.

Custom Usability Templates are carefully created with the client's input in all stages of production resulting in a layout and visual representation that reflects a carefully thought-out and intuitive user experience. Each template is sold to a single site and may not be duplicated for use elsewhere. The client may provide design mocks to be used as a reference point.
Typical price range: $5000 - $12000

Migration Templates are designed based on the layout of an existing static website or design mock and a usability road-map to be determined by the web-site manager. In this approach, there will be changes to some elements of the template to accommodate the functional differences between a static and Web CMS based website.
Typical price range: $1700 - $5500

Single Slide Templates are based on a design mock-up or the look of an existing website with minimal adjustments and modifications to accommodate the unique characteristics of the Web Content Management System. The client provides a reference slide indicating the various required content regions to be configured for the Web CMS to dynamically populate. These templates do not include any kind of custom PHP coding.
Typical price range: $650 - $1300

Mark-up Standards

Web Standards, accessibility and clean valid mark-up is a basic requirement to all the web design and development work that we do. For that reason, we apply the following guidelines and requirements to all projects:

• We hand-code all our mark-up and programming code
• We adhere to Web Standards by producing all projects in Transitional XHTML and CSS
• XHTML and CSS is validated to comply to W3C standards using the industry standard validators: http://validator.w3.org/ - Strict or Transitional XHTML
• XML Markup and XSLT transformation for browser XML or XHTML is available upon request as an added feature/service

Ownership

Every template is carefully created for the structure and needs of a particular web-site, as well as to maintain the unique identity and value of every web-site. The custom template belongs to the client unless otherwise specified in the scope/agreement who may modify and use the template as he/she may see fit on any other owned websites. We reserve the right to use any template we create to demonstrate layout choices.

Additional Services

Template design and production does not include Drupal installation, configuration, or module installation. These services can be requested as separate projects or added to an existing scope for a negotiated cost or at an hourly rate.

Hourly Fees

If you would prefer to be billed on an hourly basis, please refer to your upfront hourly billing fee schedule as outlines and explained in the related document listed alongside

NB: The above prices and hourly rates are just guidelines.
Please request a more precise quotation for your particular project