Wireframes are an essential stage in building a website. The wireframe is a large part of the blueprint for the site whether it is hand-drawn or in digital format. It should give a clear understanding of what elements are on each page, where they should be displayed and why–to achieve the most cohesive balance and overall structure. As we always say, building a custom website is like building a custom house–you wouldn’t want to pick out your dining room wallpaper before you even decide if there will be a dining room!

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In our new weekly blog post categorized “Projects”, we will highlight some of the latest website launches, designs, and development work that Blue Fountain Media has done. Here is the first installment of many to come:

Website beta launch: EOS Health

The Challenge: Make the user interface easy to navigate by condensing the variety of services, programs and target audience in a most logical way.

The Work: Information Architecture / User-Interface Design / Web Development (ActionScript, ASP.NET framework)

What’s Cool: Member account area /  Community area / Quick & Easy sign-up via Flash / Easy to navigate e-commerce section
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This is a follow-up to yesterday’s How to write a spec doc, and is for those on the consumer side of web development, and also for those web developers who are thinking “is a spec doc really necessary?”

“Specifications Document.” “Information Architecture.” What they mean and why your website quote isn’t complete without them

So you’ve called a few website companies and they may have told you it’s necessary to complete a specifications document, information architecture, research or discovery phase, but what exactly is that, and why is it necessary before giving a quote for the work?
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Any large website needs careful planning and information architecture before development begins, and that means creating a specifications document. A successful website deployment depends on this document just as the house you live in began on paper as architectural blueprints. However, many web developers either don’t realize this, or don’t know how to create a spec doc. If you suffer from the latter affliction, here is a handy guide to our habitual process, as well as some helpful hints.
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