Website Design and Development

Professional web design - at a sensible price

Because we design each website from scratch to suit the needs of the client, every one of our designs is unique and fully bespoke. Nevertheless, there are three underlying principles that underpin every Pixelbox Design website: they’re clean, clear and compliant. What exactly do we mean? Well, it’s like this:

CLEAN: Our use of images, logos and menus is as clean as possible, avoiding the need for unnecessary buttons, clashing colours or frivolous features. In the Web 2.0 era, less is often more. If visitors are met with a bewildering array of links, unwieldy drop down menus and large text areas, they’ll be instantly turned off.

CLEAR: The websites we design are sensibly laid out, with clear use of headers, footers, site maps and other navigation tools to make browsing as intuitive as possible. The clean coding we use is also clearly laid out, making maintenance and updates simple for any third party who assumes responsibility for your website.

COMPLIANT: Every site designed by Pixelbox Designs is compliant with the international design standards set out by W3C, those clever people who created the world wide web.

Your website is one of the most important sales tools you possess; for many of your customers, it is the ‘face’ of your company. Get it right and you can enhance your image, boost traffic and increase sales. Get it wrong however and you risk alienating your target market.

Many businesses can’t afford to spend the vast sums of money that are typically required in order to create and maintain a professional website that will hold its own against larger rivals with vast budgets at their disposal. By eliminating expensive office space and adhering to Sustainable Web Design principles, Pixelbox Design are able to keep costs down and eliminate hidden extras. That way, the only thing you’ll end up paying for is our web design expertise and search engine optimisation nous.

So that’s what we do, and this is how we do it:

Opensource web design software

Pixelbox Design always use Open Source web design software. Why? Because it’s easily accessible and widely recognised on the web. Because the code is Open Source, it can be easily modified to ensure that each website is perfectly contoured to suit the needs of the client. We use a range of blogging, e-commerce and shopping cart software including the following:

 

Opensource Software

 

Multi-platform compatibility

These days, people access websites via a variety of mediums including laptops, iPads and smartphones. If your site can’t automatically configure itself to suit such devices, your customers will go elsewhere. Pixelbox Design websites are compatible with modern browsers and web devices. Accessibility and cross-platform support come as standard with our websites, to ensure that your message reaches as wide an audience as possible.

Website Accessibility

Website AccessibilityDoes your company website break the law? - Not a lot of people are aware that on 1st October 2010 new UK legislation came into force called the Equality Act 2010. Beefing up the rights and responsibilities of the Disability Discrimination act, the Equality act places a legal obligation on every business, organisation and service provider to ensure that all of their products, services, premises and information sources including websites are where possible, made accessible to everyone regardless of disability. Accordingly, if your website is not built or modified to comply with accessibility guidelines, your business is breaking the law.

Obviously the Police are not going to come knocking at your door, but a disabled person or their representative can make a complaint that they are discriminated against by your inaccessible website and you can be issued with a notice by the Equality and Human rights commission to make necessary alterations to your website to make it accessible. Failure at that point to have your website made accessible can result in hefty fines and having your website shut down.

WebAIM provide a useful free tool for checking the accessibility of your website at wave.webaim.org. Whilst the tool is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate it will give you a good idea if you need to take any action.

All websites built by Pixelbox Design are certified compliant with the Equality act 2010 and we adhere rigidly to the accessibility guidelines of the W3C and to the web accessibility code of practice contained within British Standard BS8878.

Web design coding compliance and standards

W3C is the governing body of the web. They set out guidelines and offer verification tools to ensure that your website is built using industry standard coding. W3C also govern a variety of other coding languages such as XML, SOAP and SSML. Web designers who follow the guidelines set out by W3C can expect their sites to benefit from:

The two main W3C standards practiced by Pixelbox Design are XHTML and CSS. Click here to see if your web site has been constructed to the coding standards set out by the W3C or click here to verify this page that you are viewing.

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