One of the most important components of any successful web site is the actual construction, also known as the information architecture. Presenting the navigation in ways that the user expects make the navigation intuitive, and the key to intuitive navigation is consistency. Ineffective navigation can be caused by:

• Overly complicated or gimmicky menu systems
• Inconsistent/unusual placement or style of links
• Inconsistent page design or layout
• Unclear or misleading link text
• Graphics only links

Studies have shown that a website has approximately 8 seconds to clearly demonstrate to users how to get the information that they are looking for and then, more importantly, to lead the user to purchase your product or service.

Achieving the right image is an important consideration, but web navigation is always at the forefront. A website designed by Foreground Image will always be designed to deliver your message in a clear and concise way.

• Registering a domain name
  a unique "address" on the web such as yourbusiness.com)
• Designing web pages (similar to typesetting and laying out a newsletter)
• Designing art work (creating original art work for the web site
• Writing the editorial content for the web site
• Scanning your graphics and text to make them useable on the web
• Programming a database to work on the web
  (for mailing lists, surveys, catalogs, customer sales data, etc.)
• Setting up the web site on a hosting service
• Hosting the web site on an ongoing basis
  (storing the web site on a computer, connecting it to the internet)
• Registering the site with Internet search engines
  (marketing and promoting the site)
• Creating and managing pay-per-click advertising

We start with a site map and text-based content pages:

A site map consists of a graphical layout of how your website pages are connected. Each page is numbered and linked to a text-based content page and graphical components

 Once the backend functions are decided upon, we identify solutions--custom, off-the-shelf, or a hybrid--that are appropriate for the project. Off-the-shelf software is sometimes sufficient, but when a custom application needs to be developed, a program specification document is created.