WEB DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHING

All web development wrestles with a fundamental paradox.  We all want beautiful, entertaining sites that are clearly organized and communicate efficiently.  But the reality is that large graphics and fancy navigational systems take too long to load, and often distracts the viewer from the task at hand.  Search engines also penalize sites that load too slowly or do not have enough descriptive text.

Our focus has been on clean well organized sites that focus our attention on clarity, security and content, not frills.  We have the ability to build sites that:

• capture information from forms to a database

• send encrypted emails

• retrieve data from databases

• accept secure credit cards

• include bulletin boards

• include real audio slideshows

Current research suggest that one of the best ways to get people to return frequently to your site is to give them the opportunity to supply content.  This keeps the site fresh, and makes them feel a part of a community.  In time our goal is to broaden most of our sites into more of an interactive exploration.   

Click here to see more about interactivity.

Many web development firms charge for site maintenance, then even more for revisions or additions.  Yet the new software is making it easier and easier for non programmers to be able to maintain their own sites.  Our goal is to work with our clients to get them to be as self-sufficient as they desire.

Increasingly, people are using the email and the web to publish reports that used to be printed and mailed.  In general, this involves frequent updates on relatively small budgets.  We have researched the different ways to streamline this update process as much as possible.  For example , we have built a Visual Basic program that updates Excel graphs from a database in Access, and emails the resultant reports as Acrobat PDF files, all without human intervention.  

Click here to see more about automated report distribution.

SAMPLE WEB SITES

We have developed and maintained web pages for several businesses and non-profit organizations including:

Wild Things Unlimited - The goal of this site was to design a clean simple look in order to keep the orgainization simple, and the emphasis on the work that they do and the great photos of the rare animals.

Headwaters Economics - Emphasized simple organization, a clean layout, and fast loading pages.

The Montana Chapter of the Sierra Club - Designed to integrate all of the local groups in Montana into one cohesive site.  

Conservation Land Network - A simple site designed to be informative, load fast, and do well in the search engines.

The Tributary Fund - The design emphasized beautiful photos of Mongolia.

This site - Designed to be simple, clear, and fast.