Here’s a fun fact that some may not know: our team at Gravity Jack develops fully custom web experiences. Understandably, it’s easy to get carried away talking about the next breakthroughs in augmented reality, virtual reality, and WebAR technology — but sometimes a client’s need boils down to a well-executed website. From design to development to SEO to launch, we’re here for all of it! Whether the project calls for creating a new website from scratch or updating an existing one, our expert design and development teams have an incredible process that helps ensure we are casting a client’s vision for making an impactful online presence. A website should reflect not only a company’s brand and products but their values. That’s why the first and most important step in any project we develop is listening. We want to hear all about things like:

• What inspired the start of the business?
• Who is the primary clientele?
• What’s the desired outcome when visitors land on the website?
• What products or messages should be front and center?
• Is there currently have branding in place?
  • If not, no big deal, our design team can help with that!
  • If so, our team will look at the current branding guidelines and ensure it’s followed throughout the entire website.
• Do you have a favorite website? What do you like about it?

The list goes on! But getting these core questions answered will serve as the source of inspiration when designing and conceptualizing a website.

USER EXPERIENCE

A client’s desired outcome for their site will then dictate how the pages are to be structured. To make this happen, our team will create high-level page structures where:

• All major pages and content blocks are identified
• The pages and content are organized to establish their relationship to each other
• User journies are mapped out to achieve the desired outcome while they are on the website

USER INTERFACE

The result is a blueprint of the entire website. Much like building a house, creating these wireframes (blueprints) helps the client understand the thought process behind their website before a single line of code is written (hammer put to nail). Additionally, this allows the design and development teams to be agile and strategic in the event elements of the website need to be modified later on. Once the client approves the wireframes, it’s time to move on to the UI design. UI design focuses on the look and the feel of the website. With things like fonts, colors, and images already decided in the previous stage of the project, it’s now time to put them together within the website. And while each page will have different content (Home pages, products page, about us page, etc.), an important part of the UI process is maintaining brand consistency for the user as they navigate the website. With the UI in place, Gravity Jack will present the client with editable designs that showcase what the website will look like on mobile and desktop browsers. It’s also worth noting that our team first designs and develops fully responsive websites for mobile devices and then creates the desktop version. The logic behind this order of operations is because mobile devices were responsible for 61% of the traffic on U.S. websites last year.

DEVELOPMENT

Once the UI assets are in place, and the client green lights the plans, it’s time to start development. In the development process, Gravity Jack works in two-week sprints. Within each sprint, there will be a set of tasks to be completed and then tested. At the end of the two-week sprint, Gravity Jack will present the client with the latest version of the website that can be viewed on a staging site. A staging site allows for the client’s current website (if one exists) to remain live and operable while Gravity Jack builds a new website behind the scenes.

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)

An additional service that Gravity Jack provides throughout the development process is the improvement of SEO (search engine optimization). Aside from creating a fully functional website, establishing SEO best practices is the most important part of the entire development process. SEO provides search engines such as Google valuable insight into a website which helps them return the most accurate results for their users. The goal here is to be one of the top results returned ahead of any competitors. For example, you may have found the Gravity Jack website by searching “website development agency” or “companies that develop AR apps.”

QUALITY ASSURANCE

With the development complete and the SEO in place, it’s time to take the website for a test run, or as we call it, quality assurance. During the quality assurance phase, we do things like run tests on payment processes, fill out any forms, play all media, and click on every button on the website. After the website has been run through our internal quality assurance tests, we encourage the client to browse the staging site for one last look over before it goes live. When the thumbs up is given, Gravity Jack will officially push the site live and pass on the credentials to the client. From there, clients can start adding blog posts, more media, and diving into the website’s analytics where they can study things like the number of website visits and time spent on site.

What’s next?

First, share the finished product with the world and enjoy the new clients. Second? A complimentary app or a WebAR experience perhaps? 😉