Design | The Bastion Way

Business: It all starts with understanding your business; how you do business, your target markets, your competition, your resources. Once we understand that, we’re able to make recommendations regarding design, branding, functionality, content and more. We view ourselves as part of the interactive process in determining the best track for your website.

Art: The web has become first and foremost a visual medium. It is critical that your site look good and reflect the appropriate image of your company. Additionally, the design must appeal to your target market.  You have the ultimate say in how your website will look; however, we are there every step of the way to help produce beautiful, quality designs.

Technology: The technology of the web continually changes. Techniques change, add-on programs become common place, browsers get updated, user hardware changes. 

In past years we developed websites based on people using Internet Explorer with a 56K modem, 256 color graphics cards running at an 800x600 resolution and websites having 100% static content.

Today, we’re more likely to develop with 3 to 4 browsers in mind, running on high speed Internet, displaying millions of colors, at high resolutions, with Flash, Javascript and websites displaying combinations of static and dynamic content.  Additionally, users may be viewing sites on large home computers or small mobile devices.

Intelligent Design: The three components of business, art, and technology lead us to design intelligently. One should complement the other. The available technology drives the artistic elements. The business aspects of the site will drive the technology to be used. Using technology just because you can – proves nothing.  Artistic design at the expense of site usability is a negative.  

Holistic View:  Do we also need to consider pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, or search engine optimization, when we think about the design of your website? Do you have enough resources to manage your planned site on an ongoing basis or do we need to recommend scaling back? Are you likely to be changing or expanding your business lines or target markets?  These are just some of the things that will affect design decisions. 

Our Quality Paradigm: The best way to achieve consistent results is to ask your employees to approach their jobs in a consistent manner.  We have decided that all projects big and small, simple and complex, will be approached with an eye toward quality and detail.  However, we also know that trying to take something from achieving 95% of its potential to 100% of its potential can often double the costs. That last 5% can add 100% to the price-tag and vastly increase time to delivery.

Thus, we target a very high quality product while keeping pricing in line.  We can also offer websites at different budget levels by varying the design process, the quantity of content, and scope of functionality (see Design – Options for more information). 

On Time – On Budget: We use a set process of project management to ensure the process goes smoothly and is completed on time.  We do 95% of all projects on a fixed-bid basis to ensure that you pay exactly what you expected. No surprises - except that there aren’t any surprises.