This week we were interviewed by WWDC, a company set up with the goal of providing impartial advice about which web design company to use for a project. We have provided the interview below, or you can read it here (click on the ‘interview’ tab).
The interview
Hi. What’s your name and position in the company?
My name is Graham Ormiston – I’m one of the Directors at PixelSparks.
Describe your company in 5 words.
Multi faceted but never facetious.
What’s your business philosophy?
We’re all about offering a great web design service that helps businesses get the most out of the web without trying to cash in on every new technology fad or bamboozling clients into paying us!
Describe your office environment:
A few too many widescreen monitors + coffee fuelled designers + Spotify = the perfect web crafting atmosphere.
Describe how your team interact and work together.
We’re keen to keep a productive but creative balance here, and as such have regular meetings to discuss projects, bounce around ideas and keep everyone talking and thinking.
What makes you different from other web design companies?
We pride ourselves on our ability to produce great web content in house – we offer great photography and video production – both particularly useful in enhancing the client’s brand across the web (not just on their own website). Of course, offering SEO and AdWords management is fairly standard for web design companies these days, but we do that too.
How do you get the majority of your business?
Generally through referrals and word of mouth. You can advertise all you like but people like to have a good reference before investing both time and money – especially when getting a website built which it seems can be quite a personal beast (even for a business)!
Describe how you manage projects from the initial client contact to completion and handover.
Firstly, get to know the client. Find out what they like what they don’t – this can pay dividends later on in the project timeline. Analyse their needs and goals for the project. Then move on to gather research, initial designs (with some input from the client), formalise the designs and then develop the site. Within the mix add user testing, quality testing, production testing, content building and then you’re pretty good to launch!
What do you think is the most crucial element of creating a good client relationship?
Keeping the client in the loop. We find that as much as anything, if you stay in touch with the client and keep them up to date on progress then there will be no surprises for either party. This helps us to maintain our goal of providing consistent and reliable service.
How do you manage demanding clients?
We make sure that our project schedule is very clear from the start, and do our best to manage the client’s expectations. It can occasionally be a challenge for companies which don’t deal with design on a regular basis, but we do our best to keep everyone clear about our design process.
If a client was trying to decide between a shortlist of web design companies, how would you recommend they go about selecting the right one for them?
Does the company specialise in the technology you are interested in, do they have positive feedback on a regular basis, do they answer the phone? Just talking to a company about what you want and finding out what they offer and whether they are willing to help you is a good way to start. If a web design company just wants to take your money and doesn’t take any interest in your product then I would suggest looking elsewhere.
Where do you see your company in 10 years?
Our primary aim is to continue to develop top quality websites for businesses both large and small whilst providing a jargon free project development atmosphere for the clients to be involved in. We also have a keen interest in developing sites for clients all over the world, so hope to be involved in some global projects.
Where do you see the web design industry in the future?
The obvious is mobile – more and more clients will be requesting sites that work well across all devices, and the industry will continue to grow in this. We’ve been really excited by some of the great developments in web technology in just the last few years, and can’t wait to see what happens in the future.
What computers do you use?
Mostly PCs, but we do occasionally use Macs (keeping up appearances)
How was your company name chosen?
We mostly specialise in digital media, whether web design, video or photography so ‘Pixel’ was an obvious choice. We went for ‘Sparks’ for our emphasis on creative freedom and spontaneity.
If you were to give your clients one tip on how to get the most from their website what would it be?
Make a plan for adding content and stick to it. Try and stay ahead of yourself as well (have a couple of blog posts in the bag for example). This can be very helpful if your creative juices are running dry and you still haven’t thought of a blog title for the week.
That, and distribute your content to every channel possible, whilst always building links back to your site.
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