At eyesparks we create great websites. We create them as part of a team – us and the customer. The styling that surrounds the site is important as is the technology that powers it, but the most important aspect of the site is the content. My web career began properly in 1997 when I designed the first Riverdeep website. I was the design director for the company and had been involved in every aspect of product development, so I knew the content inside out. During the four years that I was responsible for the site (which had over 1 million registered users when I left) my main priority was not the look and feel of the interface but the content that it housed. Second on the list was making sure that our users could find the content they were looking for and that it was engaging and useful when they got there.
I was surprised when I returned to Belfast at the lack of interest many web agencies seemed to have in their clients’ content. It is still a problem that many ‘web design’ companies are more obsessed with the technological structure of the website than the message or information the client wants to deliver through the site. A mistake many make is to take a task-orientated view of the web design process – ‘architecture’, ‘programming’, ‘graphics’ (a particular pet hate of mine) and finally ‘content’. Often they place greatest value in their ‘Content Management System’ which combines the first three aspects and leaves the most important area in the hands of the client.
At Eyesparks we take a much more holistic approach to web design. We understand that a website is about the people who use it (the target audience) and what they get from that experience. So we start the process by looking at how you are going to talk to your target audience through the website. What you will say and how you will say it. Then we look at how those people might expect to find that information and we design the user interface to ensure a simple, rewarding experience. We develop all aspects of the site together to ensure that visually, technically and editorially we deliver the best possible experience for your target audience. And this ensures you get the best reaction to your content and therefore a sale.