Website Design Perks from DRSDI
A common question people ask D.R.S. Design Inc, "What will you do for me?" We know there is the part of a website everyone sees and also a part normally no one sees. You may say, "Yes, we know you will do the part that is seen, but what attention will be given to the unseen?" We enjoy our work, and will do our very best for you in every area.
Free Design & Development Services
There are seen and unseen perks in dealing with DRSDI for your Web Design work. We do not over book contracts, so we can specialize in going a little further in areas others may not bother with. Here we list some of these extras we normally do on all pages, for all sites. It is these extras that set you web site apart from others.
We automatically include most of the following items, unless asked not to. If requested, the * items may be invoiced. If there is "some rope to play with" we may do the final items free of charge also. Please click on the following headings to read what you can have as gifts from us to you. If you don't understand some of the terms, please see the left hand side bar for definitions or contact us.
Free hours are invested for your satisfaction.
Our "Bells and Whistles" for You
Favicons for Branding
A favicon is what you see in your URL line at the top of a browser when you load a million dollar site. Yes, many of them are that much and some many times more. A favicon sort of stands for your "favourite Icon" and sometimes called a web icon or URL icon. It is associated with your website and can be like a brand. Branding is important for good search engine ranking. The favicon is not only used in the URL, but most browsers will show it in the tabs also. Most "favourites" lists will show it also. We sometimes strategically use favicons in place of a bullet marker for lists. A favicon is a tiny image, 16x16 pixels, so requires special intricate individual pixel designing.
404 Error Page
A custom made 404 Error page is a very important extra. When someone types an error in the URL line of the browser, this error page will show up. Try typing or pasting in your web browser URL line the following. Notice the spelling is wrong: http://drshenton.ca/pages/webquestionnnnfaq2.html The 404 Error page appears. Notice you can now click on the link you want and go directly there. This is so much better than the default 404 Error that says something like, "The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable." This is likely to be followed by an advertisement for the hosting company. The interested searcher is none the wiser as to how to find your special page.
Strategic Buttons, always visible
We design for fixed buttons always, at the top left and right hand corners of your website window. They stay there as you scroll down. The top left side button can be used to take your viewer directly to the Top of the Page or to your home page; which ever you prefer. The top right side button can be used to take your visitor directly to the Index or Site-map. I wondered for a long time why this feature wasn't more common on websites. When working on the Doulas' site, http://doulas3es.ca/, I was so pleased with the attitude of the client I wanted to do a little extra. I decided to develop a simple version of this feature as a free perk for others. In the developing I found out why most designers do not include such. It is an extremely difficult item to have working and looking right on all browsers and versions of browsers.
This site looks best in any browser
We design for "all browsers and versions of browsers" and claim, "This site looks best in any browser." There are some real far out browser challengers to this claim. To do them justice would require a switch able design for each. This is not necessary, because only one in a million uses such and they are familiar with the type of viewing it provides. Your site will still be very viewable and meaningful in these "odd ball" browsers.
Fixed design for predictability
We normally do fixed width design, at whatever width you desire. We recommend 780 pixel wide for the business part and a liquid background that expands to any sized window. We can do the total design "liquid" if required, but results can get a bit uncertain when designing for all browsers and their many versions complicated by the vast range of monitor sizes available.
Warning messages for the outdated
On every page, to aid the viewer's experience, we put notices that only come up when a certain condition is present. If Script is needed and not running there will be a notice to this effect. We design and develop for "All Browsers", but have a notice for people running older Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. This is for their good, as any version before IE 8 is full of security holes… as an expert said, "More holes than Swiss cheese."
Coding and Meta Tags
D.R.S. Design Inc. practice clean and orderly coding in all their work, paying special attention to the many possible Meta Tags the robots look for. These will be tailored especially for you. Some will be displayed by the search engine, when someone does a search and your site comes up.
Validated web design
We design and develop for 100% validation by the W3C's standards for web design. This standard is now accepted universally. It is a very time consuming process, but pays off in loading speed as well as search engine response and ranking.
Provision to check for yourself
Buttons are added at the bottom of the page for easy checking of your site's validity. DRSDI mainly design using html or xhtml and css programming so the main buttons are W3C HTML 1.0 and W3C CSS. Check out other sites by these standards and you are likely to find many errors in them. Copy and paste their URL into the window provided by W3C. Regardless of the programming language they use, the checker will switch to that language standard and give you the report.
Why do I get a warning when validating?
When you do a validation check by W3C standards you are likely to get a warning that reads, "Passed, 1 warning(s)". The reason is that UTF-8 encoded files did cause problems for some old text editors and browsers. It is well supported now, so there is no reason to worry. This is the encoding we normally use and consider best.
Checking, checking, checking
We spend much time on each page checking and re-checking layout, links, wording, grammar, spelling, validating, re-validating, as well as actual viewings in MS Windows and Macintosh operating systems and the many different browsers with the various versions there-of. Many design only for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, because it reaches 50% of the viewers. This is easy, but the problem is this 50% are the less literate computer users. Depending on the clientele you are hoping to reach, these may not include all your future prospects.
Auto-update for your copyright
We offer a copyright feature that will auto-update for the year, every year. The actual feature can't be installed until the first year has passed, or the script would leave a visible message that looked like, "Copyright © 2009-2009 Doulas3Es.ca All Rights Reserved". We may need a reminder, but after the first year we can add script enabling each page to auto-update. Now it will look like "Copyright © 2009-2012 Doulas3Es.ca All Rights Reserved," for viewers every year, not just in 2012!
Website submission to search engines *
Upon request we can submit your site to the main search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc. This is of questionable value, because many, such as Google, prefer to find you naturally. This is called an Organic Search as compared to your site being submitted by a human.
Logo on the background *
We can put your logo into the liquid background as you will see in DRSDI.ca, Doulas3Es.ca, etc. This is extra work, but most would consider it worth while. If you don't have a logo we can design one for you. We also design business cards.
Site-map or Index *
Every website should (must) have a Site-map. Many designers do not bother with it, but this is a mistake. The web crawlers look for this, so it can help your ranking and ultimately being found. Depending on the number of pages, we can possibly include this as a bonus.
Action, visual and sound *
We can put a little action into the page if you want it. This can include Multi-Media action and sounds or special designed simple action like we have on our pages.
What else do you want? *
We can do anything you see on the WWW, but some of it could cost mega dollars. On the other hand, it could be an added freebie. Let us know what you like. We aim to please.
* If requested, the starred items may be invoiced.
