Affordable:

something that can be afforded

low-cost: that you have the financial means for;

that can be afforded; believed to be within one’s financial means

So, affordable web design means a web design that is within one’s financial means. Right?

I think that what people normally mean by affordable is “cheap”. After all, how can anyone else know what is affordable to potential customers. What is affordable to one business or individual could be out of reach for another.

What we really need to be offering as web designers is “value”. But this is tricky too. Value is subjective and people put value on different things.

Value is always a function of cost. A product loses value as it’s price is increased (over-priced art work excepted). Set against that cost are all the things that you do as a web designer. Customers will assign value to things like speed, communication, design, friendliness, proximity and many more factors.

It’s up to us as designers to try and discover what these values are and then deliver on them as best we can.

I try to deliver on “quality”. This means that I’m rarely the cheapest option. I try to work with customers who put a high value on good design and coding rather than price alone.

For me this means happier clients and a happier work life!

1. www.iamhuman.co.uk
2. www.minttwist.com
3. www.fraserwebdesign.com
4. www.visualeze.net
5. www.touchtaboo.com

I will rate the sites based on 5 categories: usability, portfolio, information, design and ranking.

Usability

Usability refers to how easy it is to find important information and navigate around the site. Good usability includes having a clear and intuitive navigation system, having text that is easy to read, and prominently displaying important contact information.

Portfolio

This is highly subjective. I will look at the sites displayed on their portfolio and quickly judge the quality. Although the quality of a site can’t be truly gauged from a quick glance, on the web that is all the time you are allowed.

Information

On the web content is king. A site is nothing without information, it is after all what your users are after. I will be looking for information about pricing, best practices, company history and employees, etc. I also believe that it is important to try to educate clients on web design best practices, and will look for evidence of this.

Design

Again this is highly subjective. I’m not just looking for pretty graphics, a strong layout that displays the content in an easy to digest way is more important. Deign principle such as layout, colour theory, unity, balance, typography, etc. will all be examined.

Ranking

Lastly I will allocate points to each site based on their Google ranking. This deserves to be rewarded as it is not easy to obtain high positions in search engines. Especially for competitive terms.

iamhuman.co.uk

This site is a real mixed bag. I’m not sure that the company still operates as the latest news story is from 2007.

The first impression isn’t great. The layout of the page is uncomfortable. It is aligned to the left of the screen and the background image doesn’t fill the viewport. The page content just falls off the bottom into white space. The strange Flash backgrounds I found distracting and a little amateurish.

The colour scheme doesn’t work well for me either, the green and red just don’t cooperate.

From a usability standpoint, the text is a little small but the main nav is clear and intuitive. Text is generally easy to read despite the size). Unfortunately, a couple of pages have broken navigation sections where there are clearly some coding issues.

There is plenty of information on the site. There are lots of examples of their work. Unfortunately, I felt that most of the web designs were a bit out dated and some sites don’t work at all. I only checked the web design section, as anyone searching ‘web design east london’ would be looking at this category.

Usability – 6/10

Portfolio – 5/10

Information – 7/10

Design – 3/10

Search Ranking – 10/10

Total – 31/50

www.minttwist.com

Although not actually based in east london, minttwist have done some clever SEO to get right up to the top for this search term. First impressions are good. The site is packed with information but it doesn’t feel too cluttered. the home page features core services, ‘why choose us?’ and ‘Our Goals’. The main navigation is detailed and well organised.

Usability on this site is great. It’s easy to get around, easy to read and there are few distracting graphics.

When I clicked on Web Portfolio I was taken to the Portfolio page. From here I clicked again on Web Portfolio and was then taken to an error page. When browsing the portfolio I was sometimes directed to the wrong website, or to an error page. Aside from that, these guys have some impressive clients on there. For my tastes the designs are a little generic.

minttwist has loads of information on the site. It is all easily accessed from the main nav bar and contains links to some useful external resources.

I touched on the site design earlier. It’s nice and clean and well organised and structured. However, I found it to be lacking any personality or creativity. It’s a bit too standard looking, with very little to set it apart.

Usability – 8/10

Portfolio – 6/10

Info – 8/10

Design – 7/10

Ranking – 9/10

Total – 38/50

www.fraserwebdesign.com

I’m not sure what to do about this one. The designer has re-branded and you are now asked to go through to the new site. How many people will do this? I’m not sure. Ok, I’ll be nice and review his new site, frishmedia.co.uk.

Usability is good. The site is simple and very easy to navigate. Despite being light on dark, I found the text easy to read.

The portfolio is ok. He has lots of designs to exhibit and I’m sure some will enjoy the scrolling mac style viewer. Again, I found the sites on there to be a little generic with lots of stock style imagery. This is potentially down to low budgets.

This site isn’t packed with info but all the necessary information is included. He has included his terms and conditions which I liked. It shows a degree of openness and transparency.

I like the design of the site. the colour scheme is really eye catching, the layout is simple and consistent and graphical elements are subtle and stylish.

Usability – 8/10

Portfolio – 6/10

Information – 6/10

Design – 7/10

Ranking – 8/10

Total – 35/50

www.visualeze.net

This site is a mystery to me. Firstly the name ‘visualeze’ suggests that things will be easy. They won’t.

The usability on this site is seriously lacking. What I thought was a difficult to read main nav, turned out to be tag lines and not navigation at all. There seems to be some effort to be highly accessible, which is commendable, but I was confused with the numbers and letters beside the nav items on the left.

The sections are very confusingly named. For example I eventually found the portfolio under ‘Creativity’. Once there, there were only four examples of websites and they were predictably poorly designed, with no information on the projects.

There is a fair amount of information on the site, from ‘Hosting’ to ‘Pay per Click Advertising’. Again though, these are listed under strange headings like ‘Productivity’ and ‘Communication’, instead of something like ‘Our Services’.

The site is really let down by the design. It looks like it could have been designed using MS Word. There is a loose colour scheme based around black and orange but then there are weird additional colours like the maroon and light blue. Layout is good and the style is generally consistent and there are no distracting visuals; so overall readability is good.

Usability – 4/10

Portfolio – 3/10

Information – 6/10

Design – 3/10

Ranking – 6/10

Total – 22/50

www.touchtaboo.com

We’re ending on a high here. Touch Taboo is a really good example of an agency site.

The site is easy to navigate with a simple and well positioned main nav. The white background and dark text makes sure the content is legible.

The portfolio is the best of the bunch. The image viewer looks great and the work that it displays is of a high quality. My only issues here are with the lack of any project information, and that the image browser arrows are hidden until rollover.

There isn’t much information on the site. Not necessarily a bad thing as it is straight to the point and people’s attention spans on the web are notoriously short. A bit more detail on the portfolio pieces would have been useful. The blog does contain some good articles for potential clients and social integration is obviously something the designer has embraced.

The design is very current. It is nicely structured, the colour scheme is strong, the images are bold and colourful and the typography is well executed. My only real criticism is that it is a little too ‘safe’ and unoriginal. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, many clients will be attracted by the corporate feel.

Usability – 8/10

Portfolio – 8/10

Information – 7/10

Design – 7/10

Ranking – 6/10

Total – 36/50

Conclusion

1. www.minttwist.com – 38/50
2. www.touchtaboo.com – 36/50
3. www.fraserwebdesign.com – 35/50
4. www.iamhuman.co.uk – 31/50
5. www.visualeze.net – 22/50

It was a close run thing at the top. The top three sites were all good. Iamhuman was saved by it’s high ranking but I think that it and visualeze could really improve with not much effort.

I guess all this sounds a bit arrogant. What qualifies me to sit here judging my peers? Nothing really! However, I did find this to be a really useful exercise in critical analysis of websites. I’ll have to take another look at my own site and see where I can improve based on these criteria.

Fancy taking me down a peg or two?

I would really like to hear your feedback on this. Do you agree with me? Are you one of the site owners? What do you make of my site? Please use the comment form below.

All sites viewed in Firefox on Mac OSX.

These are the personal opinions of Keith Devon and are only a superficial and subjective view on the sites examined.

1. Where are the servers located? Ideally, the servers will be located in the country that you operate in.
2. Do they support the technology you need? Will your site require PHP5 or be a .asp application? Ask you web designer about this.
3. How much storage do you need? If you require a huge database or lots of high res images you may need more storage.
4. What is the bandwidth? If your site has high traffic it may become very slow without the appropriate bandwidth.
5. Customer service. Hosting companies are notorious for their customer service skills. If you are having problems with your site you will need to get it sorted quickly. 24/7 phone support is desirable.
6. Price. To an extent you get what you pay for. However, be carefull not to pay over the odds for features that you don’t need.

There are many hosting companies willing to grab your money. A little time spent researching the right options will save you money and stress. If you choose to work with me I will guide you through the process of choosing the right host.

Choosing the right name

Choosing the right domain name can be daunting. There are some ways to make it easier.

Use your name

Whether a business or an individual it makes sense to use the name you trade under.

Keep it short

Nobody wants to type in www.thebestdamninternetcompanysincetimebegan.com everytime they visit your site. You don’t need to include words like ‘ltd’, ‘the’ or ‘company’.

Make it easy to pronounce

If it’s easy to pronounce, it’ll be easier to say over the phone and easier to remember.

Use real words

This will help search engines find you, make it easy to remember and easy to type.

Choose the right extension

.com? .co.uk? .net? .org? There are lots of extensions to choose from. There are two main considerations here:

1. what does your company do and
2. where does it do it?

If you are a company based in the UK, and that is also your target market, go for a ‘.co.uk’ extension. If you want to sell in france go for ‘.fr’. ‘.com’ is ideally suited to international companies. Not for profit organisations typically work under ‘.org’ or ‘.org.uk’.

Specifying a geographical area could help with your search rankings in that country. If you want a high search ranking on Google.co.uk then use ‘.co.uk’. (Remeber this will not guarantee a high rank, there are many other factors involved.)

Read it again

Sometimes combining words creates new unwanted names. A famous example was the ill-fated Pen Island.

Registration

Domain name registration involves buying a name from a domain name registrar. Once you have chosen the domain (see above) you need to check it’s availability. To do this go to a domain name registrar (I use GoDaddy.com) and use the domain search. If the domain is available you will be able to purchase it. If not, you will probably be offered alternatives.

The cost of domain registration is fairly consistent but as always there are people who will try to rip you off. Check a few different sites. Be wary of very low prices, they will probably be massively increased after the first year. Make sure you read the small print.

WordPress is free to download and has a huge community of developers and designers constantly updating and supporting it. Whatever functionality you need for your site, there is a WordPress plug-in to achieve it.

WordPress started out as a blogging platform, used mainly to post articles and news events. It has become much more powerful than that and now supports full e-commerce solutions and social networking functions.

There are other open source CMSs available. The two other major competitors are Joomla! and Drupal. I choose WordPress because it has the most user-friendly admin section. It is important that the system is easy for clients to use.

Research

The project starts with some research. Company history, target markets, competitor sites and other information is gathered to set the scene and define the problem. Site objectives and requirements are provided by the client. It’s useful at this stage to set some targets for the project; ie. more visitors, more newsletter sign-ups, more contact forms filled out, etc.

Design

Next, this information is used to design the site structure and basic layouts. The designs will take the form of wireframes, basic line drawings of where important site features will be placed on the page.

In the project brief the client will identify preferred styles and sites that they like. This information is used to produce design mock-ups. These are non-functional images of what the pages will look like. Some clients will only require one mock-up and some will want to see multiple designs, the choice is yours.

The Build

Once the mock-up is refined and approved by the client it’s time to start building! The site functionality is built first and then the elements are styled to match the mock-up. This stage can take anywhere from a few hours to any number of weeks. It all depends on what you want your website to be able to do.

Go Live!

Now it’s time to get the site on line. Once a domain name and hosting package has been arranged the site can go live.

Testing

It’s always a good idea to incorporate some user testing into the process. This can be as simple as getting some friends round and asking them to try it out or can be tackled more formally. It’s a good idea to do this as early and as often as possible within a project.

Any of these stages can be cut back or elaborated on, depending on your budget. Some clients need a quick, cheap site and that’s fine. But it’s important to realise that something will have to be sacrificed. Usually it’s the research, design and testing stages that are cut, arguably the most important stages.