We Ask. What are the users of your website really thinking? Who are they? What do they expect from your site? Can they locate important information? How well does your site compare to competitor sites? How well does your site integrate with your other marketing efforts? What are the goals for the site?

We begin every project by asking ourselves, your users and your project team these and other important questions. Why? Because the very essence of design is solving problems. Approaching site design merely as a subjective visual design exercise may result in a pleasing first impression and may even garner awards from art competitions, but unless important customer needs and expectations have been addressed, your site may not fulfill your business goals.

We ask questions to expose weaknesses in “surface-level design.” Getting into the heads of customers (or “target audiences,” as we like to call them) is the key to creating solid site structures tailored to customer needs and expectations. Putting ourselves in their shoes. Trying to imagine what they see. Never allowing important facts to be overlooked simply because no one bothered to ask.

For example, as you view our recently launched Plano ISD site, take this simple test. Imagine you are a parent, student or teacher, then give yourself a task like registering a student, finding a school web site or acquiring health plan information, and finally go to the site and try to complete the task. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is. This “ease of use” comes as a direct result of doing the necessary work of information gathering, processing and usability testing up front, before the graphic design work begins. eSiteful uses a variety of tools developed over years of experience and proven through the creation of numerous web sites to ensure that the underlying architecture of every site we design is easy to use and well suited to our clients’ business goals.

At eSiteful, we design information structures that are logical, helping your users find and use the information they want. This means customers want to use your site again and again rather than look to your competitors, and that’s always good. Traffic on the Plano ISD site, for instance, increased by more than 300% in the first two months after relaunch. This is a direct result of well-planned information organization and labeling (or “information architecture,” as we call it). Users comment that the site offers more information than the old design, and it’s easier to find. The client is also pleased at how much easier the site is to maintain.

We Create. Not only do we design sites that are easy to use and maintain, but we also design them to communicate effectively and to stand out visually from those of your competitors. In fact, our designs have been honored with some of the Internet’s most prestigious awards. Just ask organizations like OG&E, Aramco Services and Veolia Water.

Because our designers have extensive experience creating corporate brand identities, advertising campaigns, brochures and packaging, our clients trust us to further enhance the sites we design by helping to integrate them with existing marketing campaigns while taking advantage of the unique strengths of the medium. We help your site to function as an integral part of your company’s communication strategies. Susan Harkness, advertising coordinator for OGE Energy Corp., says this focus is what won over her company, which needed to assign a project for subsidiary OGE Energy Resources. "The main criterion I had was an ability to understand and continue a corporate direction," Harkness says. "Besides possessing competitive pricing and capabilities, eSiteful added its own creativity to our corporate look and feel in a way that blended so well, its work looked just like another part of the puzzle." So impressed was OGE Energy Corp. that the company has since awarded eSiteful several other jobs at the corporate level.

We Develop. Information architecture and creative communication are just part of the picture. Compliance with new regulations, application development/integration, online services and e-commerce are now normal parts of modern web sites. eSiteful has extensive experience with companies including Merck & Co., Houston Community College, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Texas A&M University.

eSiteful developers go through the same rigorous procedures of information gathering and user testing for our development projects. Whether it’s the creation of a custom online application designed for your customers or the establishment of a content management system to help your staff manage things behind the scenes, we make sure that it’s reliable and easy to use. We recently helped pharmaceuticals giant Merck save considerable resources and countless man-hours by developing a custom online classified ad publishing system for the Merck employee portal serving its more than 40,000 employees.

We Click. As important as our technical and creative accomplishments are, we also value the relationships that we have developed with our clients. We enjoy working with them and they keep coming back to us. It is important to us to develop long-standing client relationships because that’s one way we know we are doing things right. Do things right, and do them at the highest level of quality and for a fair price—that’s what we offer to our clients. And they in turn reward us with their loyalty and continued support.

We are sure we’ll click with you and your company too. Contact us today to find out how we can help your company realize its full potential.