siserone ltd

some examples of the various web sites our customers need for their audiences

We believe each client's web presence should be individual, as best suits their requirements. We don't believe in templates and oh-so-boring 'slick' looking but content-lite sites.

We manage over 600 domains for a wide variety of clients - from one-person businesses to relatively large companies - and this small selection of sites has been picked simply to offer some start-points to help you think about your own online presence, and to illustrate some of the many aspects there are to creating a web site.

Click a name or picture to find out more.

Benjamin Shine

Artist and designer Benjamin Shine is rapidly becoming a significant international talent and we're pleased to have worked with him on three web sites - a product site for his 'Skoody' multi-function garment, his first 'portfolio' site and now this one - the second version of his portfolio. Very much a collaboration between us and the client, and very much a reflection of the client's personal style and preferences, this is a satisfying, often very effective and frequently very rewarding way to work - for both parties.

Better Business

This is a large site with a vast amount of information on it, and so a lot of work has been done on keeping it as easy to use as possible. Another innovation in this, the 3rd evolution, is the addition of on-line payment-taking for their various products, memberships and subscriptions. A 'behind-the-scenes' feature of the site is the way it has been fundamentally put together - this design allows for maximum ease of updating by the client, meaning the site can be constantly being added-to at no great expense.

Brand In Your Hand

This has to be one of the brightest sites we've ever designed! For this new site we worked closely with a graphic designer to achieve the right balance between the visual effect that the customer wanted, and what was going to to work well on the web. We are always happy to work with a client's designer if appropriate; indeed, it often leads to fruitful ongoing working relationships! In our view, we'll do what's required to get the right result for the customer - we're not precious about anything else.

The Chiltern College

This is the second evolution of this leading college's web site. In both instances we worked very closely with the client to make sure the site delivers precisely what they and their audience wants. This includes a student forum section that we set up but the college administers, and various pages of the site that have been put together in such a way as to enable the college staff to easily update them themselves. In such instances we are, of course, able to provide initial training and ongoing support.

Caversham

This large, long-established community-focussed site (which we founded years ago and continue to support, now with other contributors), has been designed to be easy to update and easy to use, easy on the eye and easy to expand as necessary. It includes hook-ups with Amazon for some relevant products, and also has the capacity to carry paid adverts.

DDH Recruitment

Despite or perhaps because of the rise of broadband, visitors' impatience grows and grows. A site has to be fast to download. For a site such as this, with a database handling current vacancies, it would have been easy to make the whole thing database-driven. The trouble is, that's often noticably slower. Thus, here we've mixed the elements, with the pages that can be static (and thus quick to load) created that way, and only the pages that need to interact with a database doing so.

This site also features a dynamically generated RSS feed, helping to position it at the forefront of its particular niche. Both the database-generated elements and the RSS feed that it produces have been created with an easy to use administrative interface, allowing the client to look after all aspects of the day-to-day site maintenance.

Eye Imagine

We have worked with award-winning photographer Neil Horne for several years and for this, the latest Eye Imagine site, the goal was to find some way of presenting a lot of images in a way that's just a little bit different. Of course, an image-heavy web site like this doesn't have to be, and should not be, slow-to-load. For Eye Imagine, minimalism is the key, with as little as possible to distract from the strength of his work.

Ligne Roset Westend

We have designed and managed several of the shop sites for Ligne Roset in Britain. This example for their longest-running UK store incorporates a lot of product information in a tight design that's easy to keep up to date. There is an increasingly strong antipathy in Western consumer markets towards 'corporate' branding - seen as synonymous for impersonal and uncaring. Thus, sites like the Westend one need to strike the right balance between being part of the global brand on the one hand and an individual shop that cares about its customers on the other.

Mallinson Green Woodworking

We can never stress enough that a web site must be designed first and foremost with the target audience in mind. For this, the second Mallinson site we have made, we knew from earlier user feedback that the typical visitor was interested purely in easy-to-access relevant information about the courses on offer and associated details: the venue, accommodation and so on. They were not the kind of people to visit a site for entertainment or cutting-edge design features. We're pleased to say that since this site's launch the feedback indicates we've achieved the brief!

Also worth noting is that Mallinson Ltd now have an online shop for direct sales - a facility we were able to 'bolt on' without difficulty a long time after the original site was made - without having to throw away the earlier work.

McEvoy Consulting

The McEvoy Consulting network is a longstanding customer of Siserone's and has a variety of web sites. A very common 'problem' with sites for consultants and similar service providers is that they are text-heavy and, potentially, very 'samey'. However, with some imagination, the mould can be broken without sacrificing usability. We hope these examples, for McEvoy Consulting and a related company, demonstrate how well-organised information can be made attractive and, most importantly, memorable, but without sacrificing anything along the way.

Parlane International

Parlane International are a company with a strong identity. Their web site was created in close conjunction with their own creative team to ensure a tight fit between all their branded material - print and online - and to illustrate the strength of their range through the images and animations used.

Another issue that informed the design brief was keeping the site up to date - we have ensured keeping the month-to-month news current is a simple task that Parlane are able to do in-house without any great specialist knowledge or expensive training. The site and the (trade) shop were also designed to be easily 're-skinnable' to ring the changes as their own collections are updated, and to carry new seasonal content without major re-design work and without major costs either. (Indeed, you may be looking at a different colour-way if you visit the site - it's that easy to change!)

Pietersen Fine Kitchens & Furniture

Like many of our customers, Pietersen Fine Kitchens and Furniture have been with us for several years and this is the second site we have created for them. This time around, as well as taking advantage of some of the new possibilities with web browsers, the site provides a more comprehensive show-case for the client's work. The key thing is that the breadth of work on display is handled in an easy to understand and use format - the user is never going to be lost on the site or frustrated by slow load times.

Rilan Consulting

This is a text-led site with a very specific 'look and feel', in keeping with the client's existing (print) image and, indeed, his profession. There are different ways to handle the 'problem' of being text-led - one option is to be succinct with the wording, and sensitive to the text layout - and this is a good example of that. Although there's just one small image on this site, it's not ponderous or hard-going for the visitor.

Roset Hotels & Contracts

The French Roset Hotels & Contracts company is one of the world's foremost suppliers of contemporary furniture to high class hotels, restaurants etc, and we're pleased to be able to say that they have chosen to work with us for many years now. This, the second site we have created for them, is designed to clearly demonstrate the strength of their portfolio through an uncomplicated, easy-to-use but visually strong web site.

Also of note is the simple-to-use way this site handles offers both French and English language versions. Designed for the different space requirements from the outset, offering multi-lingual versions need not be a problem.

Rough House

A client that we're proud to say we've worked with since their inception and pretty well since ours too. This recently updated site includes a judicious use of Flash (for the quotes at the top of the page) but its real strength lies in the content - which has been created and refined to make sure it really provides the information the target audience needs to find. The nuts and bolts of getting the content right is always the key, even for a multimedia company.

Voyager Systems

A good example of an e-commerce site that's very flexible, with up to three levels of product detail available depending on what the site visitor wants. This approach means both needs are catered for - maximum ease of use, but all the specifications if required. It can also easily handle their regularly changing product ranges with ease; indeed, we designed the site, initially populated it and then provided the site owner with training to enable them to update it themselves thereafter - a very cost-effective solution affording maximum control.