Design Services

Whether you need a brochure to send to prospective clients, a fully-integrated media set (print, online, electronic), a presentation for your next trade show, or a complete set of technical documents (design, reference, training, user) we can develop a solution for you. We can create a single source solution that allows you to "write once, use many" or help you develop a clear, easy-to-understand user interface that needs very little documentation and can cut training and rework costs by half. Need to document a product or process but not sure what you need? Let us work with you to define what you really need without breaking your budget.

Ever thought about making your website or technical materials available in your customers' languages? We can help with that, too. In fact, that's one of our specialties! Many companies make the mistake of believing that just translating a few pages is enough. It's not. On the other hand, some companies go all out to fully localize without fully considering the ROI for the effort. Don't spend money you don't have to spend. Do you really need a bulldozer and backhoe to put in a flower garden? Or would a couple of landscape architects with shovels be a better solution?

Designing an effective solution for your information needs takes more than a graphic artist and a big advertising budget. Most problems won't go away if you just throw more money at them. The elements of good design require more than "today's solution." What about tomorrow? What happens when that catchy marketing phrase becomes cliche and the updates you needed yesterday aren't scheduled until next month? Maybe you only need a few pages of brochureware that almost anyone on your staff can maintain. We can provide the initial design for you. Or, you might really need a complex database solution for dynamic pages with a shopping cart and ecommerce backend. We can design that for you too, without making it so complicated you need 40 engineers just to manage one update.

What do you really need? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Who do you need to update it? What skills do they need? Our design philosophy is based on providing real-time solutions for real-world problems. And when we are finished, you won't have another elephant to maintain, just a working, straightforward solution that meets your business needs.

Integrated Media Sets

The key to creating a lasting impression is consistency. That is the basic idea behind trademarks and logos. Desiging integrated media sets doesn't mean simply using the corporate-specified fonts and putting the logo on every page. Word choice, writing style, presentation style, color, graphics, and the total content should all be part of the set design. It may not be possible to use exactly the same image for every instance. But elements from that image can and should be used to convey the total relationship. It may not be feasible to reproduce every word you have on your website in your brochure. There are space considerations for print that don't exist for a web page. But that doesn't mean you should wack away at the words and chop the sentences into little tiny bites without real meaning just to make the text fit. Nor should you make the font smaller. Good writing takes craftsmanship, clarity and skill. Coordinated media sets require the ability to see the whole set, not one item at a time. Reducing everything to a few bullets and snazzy graphics isn't the answer either. We can help you develop strategic, long term solutions for all your communications needs.

Single Source

The strategy used to create single source materials is quite similar to that used to create integrated media sets. But instead of using various elements in slightly different ways as is required by different media, the concept of single source relies on one, clearly defined, easily reused source. What does this mean? On a very simple level, it means using the same graphics stored in a common directory for different documents. For writing, it means the ability to generate multiple levels of information for multiple purposes from one source. When finished, the whole design of a single source solution can seem absurdly simple, so simple in fact, that those who do not understand the expertise needed to communicate complex topics in simple structures may dismiss it's usefulness. That would be a mistake. E=MC² is a simple way of describing the complex relationship of matter and energy. It is clear, precise, and represents an extremly high level of understanding. The same clarity can be applied to many quite complex subjects. Unnecessary complexity only clouds the issues and ultimately, creates more headaches than the so-called solution can resolve. But what goes where? What goes into creating that elegant, perfect solution? Thought, planning, and a clear sense of purpose. Is it better to strike the nail so cleanly and directly that you only need one stroke or tap at it until you wack your thumb? By clearly defining each element, each paragraph, and each section of a document, you can generate whole sets of documents on-demand, without having to rewrite, repeat, or reproduce even one word. What needs to be there, is there; what doesn't isn't.

Multilingual Web Sites

Designing solutions in one language only requires an understanding of one level of presentation, one culture and one set of files. Once a second, or third, or fourth language is introduced, any problems that may be inherent in the single-language design are compounded and grow exponentially. It's enough to deal with updating and maintaining pages in one language. What happens when those tasks have to be completed in two? four? more? How often do you plan to update the pages? How can you keep the pages in synch? What's the source language? Are you going to fully localize? or translate? Who is going to manage the translations? Who is going to manage the translators? Anytime you include translations, you must also include cultural factors. So you want to translate your English site into French, Spanish, and Chinese. Does your English-language writer know how to keep slang, jargon, and technobabble out of the materials so your Spanish translator can understand the original? Should you use Castillian Spanish or Columbian Spanish? Is your Chinese translator from Hong Kong or Shanghai? These and other factors must be considered as part of the design. If they are not, you can end up spending a lot of time and resources to create a many-headed monster that your customers cannot understand and you cannot maintain.

Technical Publications

Reference manuals, training materials, user guides, and design documentation for any system have one thing in common: the system. It's the same elephant, whether you have the trunk, the tail, or a leg. The only real difference is the point of view. If you have a cold, do you need to know the biological structure of the specific cold virus, or do you need to know that you should drink lots of fluids and rest? Depends on your role, your perspective, and what you are required to do with the information. Similarly, a user doesn't need to know that the software is coded in C# and relies on a set of standard functions. The user needs to know what to do when. But exactly the same description of exactly the same behavior is important to the design of the system; the functional description is the same. The differences are in the level of detail, the level of understanding the audience needs to have, and the presentation requirements.

User Interfaces

The biggest problem with many user interfaces is that nobody ever talks to the users to find out what their needs really are. So how then, is there to be any understanding of what needs to be addressed in the interface? Too often, the user can't find that really great hidden feature or doesn't know how to enter the correct information. It's not necessarily the user's fault. If proper consideration had been given and basic analysis had been done, the user should not have problems actually using the system. This is just as true for simple programs and applications as it is for highly complex systems. Who is the user? What level of training does the user need to understand and be able to use the system? In what situations and under what circumstances is the user expected to interact with the system? Are problems the result of inadequate training? Or are they the result of poor design? An interface isn't just a component of the software, it is a bridge between the tasks the user can perform and the system that performs them. Developing a user interface requires both an understanding of the functionality in the software and an understanding of the psychology of the user. The interface is where the user meets the system. It can be a pleasant meeting or the meeting can result in frustration. It all depends on whether or not the developers have provided the user with the appropriate tools to communicate with the system.

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