Our services revolve around creating amazing user experiences and generating a real return on investment. With every service we provide, we keep those end goals in mind. We can provide the full project cycle concept to completion or fulfill a specific need, including strategy, content creation, branding, graphic design and development.

Research / Strategy

Research starts with the client filling out the Beu Interactive Project Planner. The Project Planner asks a multitude of questions about the client’s company in general, the project’s goals, features and scope, audience, competition and brand.

Then we take a look at the client’s marketing plan. Sometimes they have one and often they don’t. Looking at their marketing plan gives a pretty good idea of how their website fits into their marketing strategy and what expectations they have.

Next we conduct a competitive analysis. A competitive analysis looks at the marketing effectiveness of a company’s online presence and their competition’s. It takes a look at each site and determines what can be done to increase their market share. The competitive analysis takes into consideration the site’s information architecture, design, traffic, links, keywords, history, Google PageRank, page speed, social media and quality of code.

Then we conduct a visual audit of the client’s and their competitors’ marketing materials. We look at their stationary, brochures, newsletters, thank-you cards, annual reports, websites and apps for visual and branding consistency.

The last bit of research is analyzing the client’s customers’ motivations for making purchases. When we understand the customers' motivations, we can design a more relevant and successful website.

With our research conducted we are now able to craft an accurate estimate and plan for the project.

Estimate

Our estimates start with a project overview. The project overview describes the client’s organization, project objectives and the creative considerations.

After the project overview is the project scope which details the website’s proposed sections, pages and features.

Then there is the project timeline with milestones and tentative meeting dates. Each delay in content delivery or pushed back meeting results in the timeline being extended by the amount of the delay. If a meeting is pushed back a week so is the final deadline.

After the schedule is the estimated project cost. We give an estimated total cost that will not change unless the project scope is expanded (pages or features are added).

Lastly are the terms and conditions under which we work. The terms and conditions cover what happens in the event of project cancellation, copyright responsibility, limitations of liability, what constitutes authorization and so on.

Brainstorm

Creative ideas are often a product of indirect thinking and letting the mind wander. Eventually the ideas start to flow effortlessly, but we have to be prepared. We have to have a project in the back of our minds for a couple of days before a good brainstorming session. It helps the ideas percolate. We also need a good sized pad of paper and a clear head with little distractions. Which means we need to get out of the office.

We grab our sketchbooks and go for a walk along Bayou St. John for a couple of hours. When an idea hits we sit down and draw it out. This process lasts as long as it takes to get a few good ideas, it just depends on the project.

Design

From our research and sketches we choose a couple of different ideas to develop into home page designs. For each design we decide on the color palate, fonts, images and grid that we will be using.

We experiment. We achieve balance with the distribution of the heavy and light elements on the page. We place emphasis on the important content. We create contrast with color, shapes, sizes, textures and typography. We use rhythm to bring an internal consistency to the designs. We give the designs unity by keeping all of the similar elements in the website alike and those that are diverse further apart; while everything is pulled into one integrated whole.

With the clients help, we then choose a home page design for site. Once the home page design is approved, polished and finalized, we design the rest of the site.

Programming

With the design polished to a high sheen, we develop the site with exquisitely written code. We integrate our code into a custom made theme for an appropriate content management system that takes advantage of its flexible back-end to create an easy to update website. In most cases the client can do all website updates with ease and without assistance.

Launch

Once the website has been created it is meticulously tested in all major browsers for errors and validated. Then the site is subject to test users to ensure ease of use and proper functionality.

When the website has final approval it is made live. At this point the client is given a hard copy of the website and database with all usernames and passwords.

The client will take over maintenance of the website upon delivery unless they have indicated otherwise.

Grow

Throughout the website creation process, we create a strategy for continual improvement and future enhancements that will allow the project to achieve its greatest potential. This strategy usually consists of a plan for content growth, a marketing plan and measuring return on investment to determine what works.