Davy and Davy

What I can do for you

I can design and build a website for you.  Straightforward informative and easy to use websites can look very good at minimal cost.  Every organisation needs a web presence but for many organisations the level of presence need not be high, although I would suggest more than the single page sites that we've seen around!  The website should provide enough clear, concrete information to give your visitors confidence that you are the organisation for them.

I can design and build your website

If you currently have one of those single page sites, or one that says "Under construction - last updated September 2003" then perhaps we can be of service!!  Gone are the days when such a web presence was enough - get in touch and let me make some suggestions.

I would design and build your website to be consistent with your overall corporate image, if you have one.  A basic website might simply reflect the content of your brochure but, even so, a website is a tool with a much wider capability than paper marketing material.  A Davy and Davy designed website will not be merely a screen based version of your hard copy.  However, with an involvement in marketing for over ten years and website design experience dating back to 1995, I appreciate both.

If you don't already have a corporate image then I can help you to create one.

I can generate graphics and animation and source suitable images if you don't already have them.  I would incorporate these into web pages that work - pages that both technically work and that work for you and your business.  If you have existing graphics and/or layout preferences I can work with them.  I can work with graphic designers that you already use, or want to use, and convert their designs to practical web pages.  These are intended to give an acceptable feel to all readers no matter what text, browser and screen sizes they have and prefer.

If you are looking to sell online, or maybe take and manage accommodation bookings, I can build you a suitable site.  If you are starting from scratch I'd suggest we base this on PHP server-side processing with a MySQL back-end database, but other technologies such as ASP and SQL can be used instead if that's what you already have on your website server.

If you want to make regular changes to the content on your website, while retaining the basic layout and design, I can provide you with the facility to do that online.  The jargon is CMS (Content Management Systems).  If the areas of changes are small, perhaps simple news items or lists of events, I would build you a bespoke system to embed the variable content into the main website.  If you are looking for major ongoing content changes, perhaps with a number of contributors and editors and a changing number of articles, then I'd suggest that we used something like Joomla as a core to the website.  Joomla is an open source (free) CMS that provides us with the mechanics of administering such a website.  I would build you a bespoke, standards compliant, website around that core.

I design for your audience

I believe that a website is not a presentation (unless it really is a presentation) and that you do not have a captive audience.  If users are not happy with what they see within a very few seconds then they will move to somewhere else - a website is interactive and the user, not the page, is in control.  I suggest that a sensible amount of animation, including the use of Adobe/Macromedia Flash, is visually attractive but should not be critical to the operation of the site.  I believe that HTML should do the job of providing website navigation, not Flash.