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.

Contact Us for a Quote

The Hegel Society of Great Britain issues academic journals & conferences on subjects related to the nineteenth-century philosopher. They needed us to: modernise the site’s layout; simplify the creation & editing of the site’s content; rationalise the addition of specific content, i.e., conferences & journal contents; rationalise (and automate to whatever degree possible) the management of members’ data; and provide them with an online gateway to collect membership dues.

Taking our cue from the historical nature of their research, we organised the look based upon 19th-century interior design.

By using our bespoke simpleCMS, they could concentrate on what they wanted to say—even for complex, structured information like conference data—and let the website worry about converting their content to HTML. By ensuring that the site is easy to manage & that their important data is kept consistent throughout, Argument from Design has given the Hegel Society a firm basis upon which to solidify their position & extend their organisation into the foreseeable future.

Atlas Retail Consultants is a fashion-oriented company that helps increase the profits of the world’s largest retail brands. In the redesign for their site, they wanted us to establish a fresh, stylish look that wouldn’t go out of style quickly & optimise the site’s content for search engine placement.

Argument from Design delivery of the first goal was two-pronged, with a home page that emphasises the client’s logo and a content page design that focuses upon the page’s message.

We kept true to the intent of the original site whilst enhancing it with the new brief’s goals. Accordingly, we always opted for more accessible options for navigation & presentation, both of which have very positive effects on search engine optimisation.

Viperlib is a website & database of media dedicated to the study of the eye & how it works. The admins wanted to streamline the site’s usage both for admins & users, who supply the majority of the library’s contributions; refresh its look; and change its focus to something akin to a “social web application” like Facebook, to make Viperlib the “go-to” place to view & discuss visual perception research.

Using modern techniques, Argument from Design created a rich layout that takes advantage of modern browsers’ capabilities—without sacrificing quality & usability in older browsers. We also provided enhancements for average users such as the ability to “tag” media in ways unanticipated by the administrators; comment on media & new items; converse with one another; and finally, to be able to display the media they’ve supplied to Viperlib and their profiles. Finally, we streamlined the site so that running it is a far simpler affair.

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.

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).