HawkinsThomas are a team of chartered financial planners with offices in both London and Cardiff. Their company motto - "Life is not a rehearsal" - should give you a good idea of how HawkinsThomas operate; they aim to help their clients live their lives the full without having to worry about money.
This lifestyle-focused approach to financial planning is very refreshing indeed, and when the HawkinsThomas team asked us to create their new business website, we were determined to provide a solution that reflected their positive, dynamic attitude. The new site would have to look fresh and modern whilst maintaining the firm's professional image; it would have to present the available services in a simple, eye-catching way; and it would have to be optimised for mobile devices, as well as for desktop computers.
The new HawkinsThomas website went live yesterday, and we're pleased to report that all of the above criteria have been well and truly met. The site has a sleek, attractive design that's perfectly suited to the firm's professional yet friendly image, and the navigation makes it extremely easy for potential clients to contact HawkinsThomas for more information. Also, the site is fully responsive, so whether you view it on a PC, an iPad, a smartphone, or any other device, you'll get a truly outstanding user experience.
With a spacious, modern clinic in Cardiff,
First Encounters Ultrasound are among the UK's top providers of 4D ultrasound scans. Their sonographers use state-of-the-art imaging equipment to capture in utero footage of unparalleled quality, but until this week, the company's website did not reflect this commitment to the latest, highest-quality technologies. The site looked outdated and was difficult to navigate, particularly on smartphones and other devices with relatively small screens.
Clearly, it was time for an upgrade, and so we at Designer Websites were asked to improve and modernise the First Encounters website to give the company's clients a better online experience. To this end, we created a functional, responsive design that looks just as good (and works just as well) on mobile phones as it does on PCs; we also implemented a robust online booking system that allows expectant parents to select a scan package and make an appointment without even picking up the phone.
The new First Encounters website looks fantastic, and we feel that it is a great representation of this cutting-edge company and the services they offer. If you would like to take a closer look at your unborn baby, visit
www.firstencounters.co.uk today!
If you need some work done in your home, you may well be interested to hear about our latest project.
ATW Property Services carry out all kinds of gas, plumbing, and electrical work throughout the UK, and the brand new website that we've just completed for them makes it easier than ever to make use of these experienced professionals and their unsurpassed expertise.
www.atwpropertyservices.co.uk, which was entirely designed and developed by the Designer Websites team, is a responsive website with an attractive design and superbly straightforward navigation. The new site enables customers to learn all about ATW's assorted services and contact the company with ease, and the slick responsive design means that this can be done on mobile devices as well as on traditional desktop computers.
Here are a few examples of what ATW Property Services can do for you:
- Boiler servicing/replacement
- New bathroom fitting
- Electrical installation, inspection and repairs
- Central heating design and installation
Whether you're a homeowner, a landlord, or a property developer, we strongly recommend that you visit ATW's new website today and take a look at our latest work!
With two state-of-the-art clinics and such famous names as Dr Christian Jessen on the staff, Doctorcall are undoubtedly among of the UK's very best private healthcare companies. While based in London and Manchester, Doctorcall do operate throughout the country, and they recently asked us to create a new website that was worthy of their nationwide renown.
To do this, we had to condense Doctorcall's long list of services - ranging from home visits to flu vaccinations, STI tests, and Botox injections - into something manageable and easy to navigate. In this respect, we believe that we have succeeded; the new site looks clean and professional, and its straightforward responsive design makes for a fantastic user experience, even on smaller screens.
The real challenge of this project was the website's multi-faceted nature; at first glance, Doctorcall.co.uk looks like a simplistic brochure website (albeit a relatively advanced one), driving users to make enquiries and appointments using a built-in booking form. However, the site also contains ecommerce elements, enabling users to purchase a variety of home testing kits, cosmetics, and other Doctorcall products online. Additionally, we had to make sure that the site would be able to support Doctorcall's occupational health services; flight attendants, offshore oil workers, and many other professionals are required to undergo a medical examination before commencing work, and so we added a series of more specific forms to the website for people who might need to book an occupational health check with Doctorcall.
The Doctorcall website is fully integrated with an advanced clinic appointment booking system called Qinec. This integration allows patients to seamlessly book appointments online with the chosen clinic and doctor.
Overall, we feel that the Designer Websites team overcame all challenges and produced a great-looking, highly functional website. As mentioned above, the new site is fully responsive and very easy to use - click here to visit it for yourself, and feel free to let us know what you think.
Last month, Google issued an ultimatum to webmasters the world over: make your websites mobile-friendly before April 21, 2015, or we'll stop showing you in our mobile search results. You can read the official announcement on Google's blog; search experts have nicknamed the promised algorithm change "the mobile SEO-pocalypse", and with that mid-April deadline now less than a month away, innumerable business owners are scrambling to make their sites look good on smaller screens so as to avoid losing their Google traffic.
Now, we're not here today to give you responsive design hints - the internet is already packed with articles explaining how to make your website 'mobile-friendly', and if you want our help, you can request a quotation here. However, we have noticed one potential issue that few others seem to pick up on, and it concerns your website's text.
You see, when web designers create a new design for an old website, they will often just copy and paste the old site's copy into the new design. This approach can create some problems for the end user, even if the information within the text is up-to-date. Here's a fictional example:
- Alice is an interior designer who owns her own business. She has a brochure website - let's call it aliceinteriors.com - that she uses to drive enquiries. Would-be customers fill in a contact form on the website, and Alice calls them up to discuss their requirements, quote prices, and so forth.
- Alice has heard about Google's upcoming algorithm change, and she wants to make her website mobile-friendly before April 21 to make sure she doesn't lose any business. She hires a local web design company to create a new responsive design and optimise the site for mobile users.
- A responsive website is effectively several different website designs in one, and aliceinteriors.com will now look different depending on whether Alice views it on a PC or on a smartphone. For instance, the site menu will likely be represented by the ubiquitous hamburger icon on smaller screens, and certain elements of each page may appear in different positions across different devices.
- While looking at the mobile version of her website, Alice notices an issue: the text on her homepage tells users to "Fill in the form on the right", but in the mobile view, Alice's all-important enquiry form is placed directly below the text in question.
This imagined scenario is just one example. Broadly speaking, any written reference to site layout ("Click on the link below", "Select an option from the menu above", etc.) becomes problematic - if not outright misleading - when placed within a responsive design. Unless you and your web designer can find a way to ensure that certain items remain static across all views, it may be better to remove any such phrases entirely and find other ways to draw attention to your website's key elements.
Either way, there's an important lesson to be learned here: when optimising your website for mobile users, be sure to read through your site's text in each different view to make sure that you aren't confusing people with smartphones!
