Elemental Maze

Five stages from site analysis to testing

Working from Plymouth, Minnesota, Elemental Maze builds websites for small and mid-sized organizations. Most of its customers are in Greensboro and Kernersville, North Carolina, and it also has customers in several other states. Its work follows a staged process that begins with site analysis and ends with testing before and after launch.

Site analysis and an approved prototype

The first stage examines customer and audience preferences, competition, marketing and branding concepts, and the business rules a site must follow. The results shape the layout. The firm builds a prototype layout from that analysis and needs the customer to approve it before any design work starts.

Design, implementation and content management

Once a layout is approved, the design stage supplies the graphics and creative elements, applies the client's branding and marketing themes, and deals with any comments or minor changes the customer raises during review. In implementation the graphical layout is fitted to HTML and CSS, and development tools make the graphics and navigation work. The firm builds on Joomla and WordPress content management systems, and it also migrates sites from Joomla to WordPress.

Responsive layouts for phones and tablets

The firm treats a responsive layout as essential, because mobile devices are now a common way to go online. Its sites are designed to be fully responsive, so that they work on phones and tablets as well as on desktop computers.

Testing at every stage

Testing runs through each stage of a project. Before and after launch the firm uses specialized browser testing software, measures download speed, checks for broken links both automatically and by hand, and does a final check for programming errors. It says that pre and post launch testing are both needed to keep a website in good working order.

Search, analytics and hosting

Search engine optimization and web analytics are part of the offer, alongside domain registration and management and website and email hosting. Custom work includes database and PHP development and online shops built on OpenCart, and the firm presents its solutions as a way of meeting all of a business's needs in one place.