building a quality web site is no different than building a house: success depends as much on the blueprint as the execution

If you want to build a house that’s safe to live in, you need a strong plan. You need to know what the requirements for construction will be — the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, how big the kitchen needs to be, how much insulation will be required to shield the occupants from the elements. You need a blueprint to define the layout of the house, an interior decorator to coordinate your colors, fabrics, floors + surfaces, and a contractor to build it. And it goes without saying that walls + fixtures are easier to move around in the conceptual stages, before any construction is actually completed.

Web sites work the same way… In the planning —or “information architecture” stage — it’s easy to define objectives, set goals and decide what needs to go where. But with the intricacies of web programming, layouts and site structures can be very difficult (and expensive) to change once the development stage begins.

That’s why Zero-G Creative recommends that extensive strategy, goal-setting and information architecture take place at the front of every small business web project we undertake. The extra time spent at the beginning strategizing and blueprinting can save our clients months of time and thousands of dollars in redesigns down the line.

Once a site architecture has been developed + approved, we move into the design phase of the project. We generally show two home page concepts initially and revised a selected concept for 2-3 rounds. At that point, we like to present a coordinating “content” page to go with the home page design. Upon approval, we then move into the development phase.

From start to finish — and with a high level of engagement and cooproation from our clients — many web projects can be completed within two months or faster.