It’s one thing to have great ideas, but rolling out the finished
product may be more than your busy schedule will allow. On the
other hand, your organization may have already produced a web
site but you find that you are unable to update and maintain it
to keep it fresh and current.
From a single custom graphic to animated banners, to complete
web site hosting solutions, Quillfire can provide the expertise
to produce what you need for a polished, professional web site.
Consider the following key factors:
Quality
Have you noticed how many corporate web sites suffer from basic
quality problems? Poor writing, lack of content, inattention to
detail, insufficient maintenance and technical glitches plague
the web. At Quillfire, the emphasis is on quality and while no
one can claim perfection, we are meticulous in detail and committed
to excellence. Quillfire’s team members bring a high standard
of quality honed by years of producing presentation documents
for federal cabinet ministers and senior officials.
Purpose
What are your needs? Quillfire will help you determine what you
are trying to achieve with your web site. You might need an electronic
version of a brochure, a showcase for your work, a secondary point
of contact, to provide public service information, or simply to
generate numbers of "hits". Depending on the kind of
business you’re in, the audience you’re targeting and your assumptions
about their technical resources, we help you focus your ideas
and your preferred style in the most appropriate web presentation.
Content and Structure
People will access your web site for a reason – to find information.
What information will be available on your web site and how will
your audience access it? The organization and navigation of your
web site must direct people quickly and simply to the content
they need. Quillfire can help you make analytical decisions about
your content, ensuring clarity and style. From grammar and spelling
to total presentation, we can write, edit and proofread your message,
and help you communicate in an appealing, logical and straightforward
way.
Graphics
What types of graphics do you want on your site? This will depend
on your overall purpose: do you want to build a striking, "Click
HERE!" site, one that is low key and subtle or something
in between? The overall design of your web site, including your
logo (existing or designed by Quillfire), colour schemes, background,
fonts and individual graphics makes as much of a statement about
your site as the content.
Quillfire can take your existing graphics and convert them for
web publishing, or if you feel your web site would benefit from
our custom graphics, we will design static or animated graphics,
including web banners, to convey your message. We know how downloading
time makes file sizes critical – we can minimize file size and
produce effective graphics.
Advanced Features
Do you have special requirements? Quillfire will assist you in
assessing whether or not your web site could benefit from more
advanced features such as indexing, ASP, CGI scripts, JavaScript
and Java, site search engine, static/dynamic databases, sound,
video, commerce and security features, as appropriate.
Web Server Logging and Statistics Analysis
With the latest Internet technologies, you can almost tell what
people are thinking as they navigate through your site. Where
they come from, which links they explore, how long they stay on
any one of your pages, and whether or not they download files
– Quillfire can provide this valuable information for you.
Updating and Maintenance
How can you keep people returning to your site? Not unrelated
to general quality problems, is the problem of "stale"
sites. Your audience will soon remove you from their "favourites"
list if they access it month after month only to find outdated
content and unchanged graphics. But however important, keeping
a web site fresh can be one more time-consuming task which is
not always at the top of your priority list. Quillfire will analyze
your site, and help you decide where to make changes, whether
it’s total re-design, the addition of content and graphics, a
re-arrangement of your site’s structure, or some combination of
these elements – all according to your requirements and budget.
You may have a site in which information must be frequently updated
– a publication, for instance, requiring monthly or quarterly
updates. This turn-over of material can create great strain on
an organization; Quillfire will have your content uploaded accurately
and in a timely fashion.
Technical Quality Assurance/Browser Compatibility
Browser compatibility is an important factor in web site design
which is often overlooked, either inadvertently or deliberately.
Quillfire verifies the details of every page on both Netscape
Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
404 File Not Found
Few things are more frustrating on the Internet than to come
across dead links. A vital part of maintaining a web site is verifying
any external links.
Web Site Services - Summary List
 |
ASP |
|
banners |
|
browser compatibility |
|
CGI scripts (Perl, PHP) |
|
commerce and security features
|
|
Common Look and Feel (Government of Canada web
sites) |
|
databases: static/dynamic |
|
domain name search/registration |
|
dynamic menus |
|
editing |
|
GIS (ESRI ArcView) |
|
graphics/logos: static/animated |
|
graphics: print, converted
to digital format |
|
indexing |
|
JavaScript |
|
link verification: external/internal |
|
Macromedia Dreamweaver |
|
maps:
drill-down systems |
|
PDF (Adobe Acrobat portable document format) |
|
proofreading |
|
scripts |
|
server logging/statistics analysis |
|
site search engine |
|
technical quality assurance |
|
VBScript |
|
writing |
Quillfire can provide quality web site design and maintenance
for your organization.
See our Web Site Planning Guide to
start the ball rolling on your web site now!
