A multi-screen workspace at The Mill coworking space in Bloomington, Indiana, with a MacBook, external monitor, iPad, and a Backblaze coffee mug on a desk decorated with Amplify Bloomington stickers.

Our Web Design Process & Strategy

Approach

How the work gets done

Technology should help people do meaningful work, not make that work harder. Every project starts from that idea and follows the same three phases: understand the problem, build something accessible and durable, then stay on to look after it.

01 - Listen

Understand the problem first

We start with what the site has to do and who it is for - usually a call, and a look at what you have now. If there is an existing site, I go through it for accessibility, speed, security, and the parts that are quietly costing you. You get a plain-language summary of what I found and what I would do about it, in priority order, before any work begins.

You will have: a written read on where things stand, a recommended scope, and a fixed estimate. No surprises later.

02 - Build

Accessible, and built to be kept

I build custom WordPress block themes - no page builder, no proprietary lock-in. The site is tested against WCAG 2.1 AA as it is built, not audited at the end, and it is structured so the people who use it every day can add a page or update a staff list without calling for help. You own the site, the content, and the ability to move it somewhere else if you ever want to.

You will have: a staging site to review, a short walkthrough of how to run it, and a documented record of the accessibility work done and anything still outstanding.

03 - Look after

Stay on, quietly

Most of the relationships here are measured in years. Hosting, updates, backups, monitoring, security, and performance work carry on in the background, and there is a person to email when something looks wrong. When Google changes something, or a plugin is retired, or you are weighing a new tool, that is a call you can make.

You will have: a monthly summary in plain language - what ran, what was updated, and anything worth your attention.

What a month of care includes

Updates on a schedule

Core, theme, and plugin updates run on a set night, after a backup, staged first when they touch anything sensitive.

Nightly backups

Kept off-server, tested, and quick to restore. You are never one bad update away from starting over.

Uptime monitoring

If the site goes down, I know before you do, and the monthly note tells you what happened and whether anything is needed.

A person who answers

Email a question and get a straight answer, usually within a day - not a ticket number.

What clients tend to value most is not a deliverable. It is knowing that someone competent is paying attention to their website, that questions get straight answers, and that they will never be made to feel foolish for asking one.

Have a website that needs attention?

Tell me what's going on.

No pitch, no pressure - usually a straight answer within a day.