Website Creation/Design
Academic professionals and small businesses approach advertising in a similar manner. Both groups are looking to attract a select group of people through a unique method by entering into the realm of the internet. Therefore, most of our service definitions focus around the academic professional, university professor, etc. but can be applied in a similar manner to small businesses and private enterprise. In the end, we provide personalized service to those who need a unique solution.
Numerous professors perform research of high level and importance and yet have no successful way to publish these results for others to see and work off of. In the world of technology and research today, communication is key, and without it, results cannot be spread to the furtherest reaches of the planet, in itself delaying possible discoveries from occuring. Due to this, we specialize in designing and creating websites for the academic that are both professional in design and personal in nature. To do this, we approach the situation in two different ways: Template design/content management and Static content/application based.
Template Design/Content Management
The most common approach is through a template design and content management system. Through the use of Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Contribute, we are able to custom build a site to meet your specifications including application development, form building, and interactivity all via a back-end interface. Then, once the site has been built, software is used by the end user to update content on the site through a front-end interface. The benefit of this is that the program doesn't require any knowledge of HTML or any other coding language for that matter and gives the user the ability to edit the content of their site much like a word processor does without risking modifying crucial code by accident.
What do we mean by content? Content is the meat of the page, the paragraphs, images, and files that make up what the user has come to see. However, the back-end code is what presents and styles the page, making it appealing and easy to navigate by the user. Therefore, this combination allows two main things: 1. The end user can modify his content, update and maintain the website without any knowledge of code or need to hire a webmaster, and 2. allow a programmer or web developer access the back end when necessary to perform upgrades, change templates, create applications, etc, thus creating a dual system that provides multiple services.
Adobe Dreamweaver is a code navigation program meant to assist programmers and designers in coding a website while Adobe Contribute is a content management system, meant to give those without any coding knowledge the ability to modify content within the constraints set by Dreamweaver. Using this combination system, a website can be designed to high standards, exactly as the end user desires, and be maintained for years with little to no interaction from our end.
This solution is recommended mostly for those who have a smaller group or are looking for a simpler website that mostly has content uploads going on it. It is not recommended for those with a desire for high end application development, form processing, etc. as these are unable to be successfully modified and maintained via Contribute and require some level of coding knowledge. If you have a site that requires more dynamic maintainence, please consider our next approach.
Static Content/Application Bases
A static content/application solution works within the realm of code, application development, and a consistent webmaster for the site. In other words, this solution requires the hiring of someone who knows how to code, specifically in some sort of web programming language (PHP, ASP, ASP.NET). Our procedure is to focus on the creative and design portions of the site, getting things going, templated, and with the appearance that is desired from the end user. Then, application development occurs, building the necessary forms and scripts to make the website function as desired. Finally, instead of setting up an end-user apparatus to work with, we rely on whomever is hired to handle updates and maintainence of the site. We offer SLAs for just that purpose.
If you wish to have a dynamic site like described above but have no code knowledge or anyone on your team that does, we still can work with that. Some options for content can be modified via an application window or interface built by us to allow minor and simple updates. Anything major or more complex would have to go through us in accordance with whatever we agree on your Service Level Agreement, or SLA. The SLA is meant to define what pieces of the website we are responsible for, length, and what the agreement on cost is.
As one can imagine, this solution tends to be more expensive, but the complexities of the site cause the price to be higher due to application development being part of the solution. A solution like this however does not require the purchase of any software and can be well implemented into a situation where there are already a few individuals who know programming code and are willing to learn the rest. We do offer tutorials on some of the basic properties needed for coding and can help to teach some of the minor things. Therefore, this solution is recommended more for a larger group, specifically one with a individual who knows some level of programming code or has desire to do so.