Portfolio: Web Development

Web development forms the bulk of Argument from Design’s work: we’ve designed for small business, manufacturing & enterprise, higher education, with niche inroads in shopping centres, consultancies & financial services . We aim to develop websites that are at the forefront in terms of usability and design & have clean, well-managed code.

Our speciality is developing websites with Ruby on Rails, the development of which Ian contributes in the form of open source plugins. Argument from Design believe not only in adopting the best technology available for our clients, but helping drive it as well.

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M J Mapp, a property management company, were looking to get more out of their pre-existing website. Their site, rendered all in images, was expensive to maintain & performed poorly in search engines. They used a non-standard corporate typeface, but wanted to retain the whole look & feel of the site whilst extending its functionality.

By employing its technical expertise, Argument from Design redesigned their website so that it’s in their corporate font & is moreover fully searchable. In addition, we supplied them with our simple CMS, so editing the site is as simple as writing an email message. Finally, because they can easily add & amend information, each employee can now be contacted directly.

M J Mapp have found that by going with Argument from Design, their site’s enhanced usability paid for itself in about a week!

M J Mapp, who run the Windmills & Britannia Shopping Centres, wanted to enhance the worth of the centre by highlighting the tenants there. Britannia didn’t have a website; whilst Windmills did, it wasn’t optimised for search engines, it was difficult to add new content & it was very difficult to discover what shops & services were on offer. In order to address these issues, they gave Argument from Design a free hand in the designs.

The results are websites that takes particular aim at all of the above concerns (Windmills, Britannia) whilst addressing others as well. When we decide whether to shop someplace new, we need to be convinced by informative content & good photography. Accordingly, Argument from Design supplied photography of the centres & liaised with different chains’ marketing departments to ensure that the content was always kept fresh.

The sites were developed with Ruby on Rails & because we adhere to agile programming techniques, the site is built on a rock-solid foundation: new features can be added rapidly without interfering with pre-existing features. M J Mapp, Britannia & Windmills have websites that can grow & change with them for years.

This long-running Sheffield company wanted their website modernised & streamlined: their old site was created by hand, meaning that updating the content was a nightmare for their thousands of products. They also wanted to accept credit cards online. Last but hardly least, we had to ensure that the site was fully optimised for search engines.

Argument from Design use Ajax methods to update only parts of a page at will: accordingly, the site’s shopping cart updates automatically on the page, so you can see at a glance how much you’re spending; the process of search, selection & sales completion is significantly streamlined.

Because of our focus on process streamlining & minimalist design, Distinctive Doors’ site is inherently focused on search engine optimisation, or SEO. All the elements that make up the design—colours, placement & the like—are shifted off the page, giving the content the edge in the “weight” of any given page. Search engines like this a lot.

We used Ruby on Rails to develop their website, which, along with the programming techniques we use, resulted in our ability to add new features almost as rapidly as the client could ask for them. The net result is a website that far surpasses the client’s expectations.

Tree surgeons & arborists Sheffield Tree Care wanted an informative & professional site to advertise their services.

Common to our standard approach, Argument from Design worked closely with them to create their logo & the logo’s design & colour scheme informed the design of the website.

Spring greenery informs the site’s colour palette—all complimentary colours which create a unified look reflecting the company’s corporate identity. In addition, our careful use of AJAX effects powers the presentation of the MD’s excellent photography and in the presentation of detailed information.

RCBS were looking to refresh their website to reflect their growth pattern & new corporate identity. RCBS, which helps start-ups & pre-existing companies develop business plans & get funding, needed to have an attractive website which emphasised planning & the “bustle” of business without hitting the visitor over the head: this reflects their own corporate ethos, which is to guide companies without forcing them along a path.

Argument from Design used the classic telltale symbol of serious business as a background: the pinstripe. It suggests the purpose of the site in a subtle way.

We used a strict grid system for the layout for absolute clarity: if companies are desperately looking for help, you won’t have a second chance to get their frazzled attention.

Finally, we used photography of oblique images reflecting business needs & goals, but which were missing a figure to give a guiding hand, which RCBS can provide.

Debt Ltd, a corporate debt collection company formed by High Court Enforcment Officers, offers best-of-breed solutions for clients who are looking to retrieve money from recalcitrant debtors but who don’t want to go through the courts.

They wanted the company’s business transacted over the web as much possible. Their roving agents needed to access data, documents & photographs, even if they were on the road. They needed a virtual office.

Clients submit jobs online—securely—& the company’s agents submit all reports via their website, all thanks to our PHP-based framework.

We created a completely-monitored system: from the time it takes the agent to pick up the case, to submitting an Initial Report & when—or whether—the client reads the report, to its conclusion; and much more. Debt Ltd’s site has had Quality Assurance built in from the very start.

Prof. Stephen Laurence of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Philosophy has received grants from the AHRC to set up an international, multi-discipline body to investigate both questions of innateness & the impact of culture on the human mind. In order to coordinate among many different disciplines, countries & themes, Prof. Laurence needed a series of websites, all of which had to be maintained by his staff.

Argument from Design created a family look for the AHRC-related websites of pleasing colours &

clear layouts. Each website employs appropriate photography to “brand” them. For the Innateness Project website, Argument from Design used an engaging photo of a baby, since this is perhaps the best way visually to get across the project’s focus. For the Culture & the Mind Project website, we employed a photograph of a child playing with a boat in the ocean—a culturally learned behaviour. The sites are assembled on-the-fly, so Prof. Laurence’s staff can update the sites without having to update the same information on several pages (such as the navigation).

The University of York wanted a redesign of their home & “Gateway” pages, the latter being directory pages for independently-operated departments.

In addition, the website had to be fully accessible to people with disabilities & be usable in very old browsers. Moreover, they needed to be sparing in their use of images because of bandwidth charges. Finally, they needed to reflect the multi-varied qualities of the University, its student body & its setting.

Argument from Design’s layouts for the University’s homepage & gateway pages employ their corporate colours & light complementary shades with a minimalist aesthetic to achieve low bandwidth goals & a fresh image.

In addition, Argument from Design developed lightweight software to convey their marketing messages called Picture for Every Occasion, or “PFEO”. PFEO let the university change the primary photo on their home page from any series of images they wish.