The Ixxus creative team are specialists in creating web and digital solutions from online brand development to websites, intranets and extranets to industry portals. Our creative team members have had experience building for the internet for over 15 years. They believe creativity is the key to capturing consumer attention and staying a step ahead of competitors.

Our creative and technical teams work together so we naturally avoid the pitfalls of technically challenging projects where independent creative agencies, internal IT departments and system integrators overlap irregularly or don’t overlap at all. Together with a wealth of experience and knowledge in designing for content management, enterprise search and portals, we’ll find the right creative design and branding solution for your needs.

We have branded this joined up approach to the creative process as ‘Interaction Design’.

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Interactive Design: The Ixxus Method

Personalities

Who are the users of the system, what are their attitudes and motivations and can we define stereotypical profiles? Are there brands, applications or navigation strategies that they will relate to?

What are they looking for in the application – what will motivate them to use it?

Motivations

What does the business want to achieve through this solution? How will we ensure these business goals will be met while satisfying end user needs?

In a world where you can never afford to deliver everything, an ROI analysis can distil out a set of core functionality and processes for automation.

Scenarios

With the scope defined we can work with users to determine the most suitable way to deliver the functionality. This conceptual user interface work presents the user journey scenarios (use cases) to the users in a way they can understand. And through an iterative process, working closely with the technology team, define the functional requirements.

Experiences

We are now ready to make objective judgements on how to combine branding work with usability and navigation.

Online branding is carefully considered set of three dimensions:

• How it looks – graphics and visual language
• How it speaks – tone of voice and message
• How it behaves – the user journey

This provides the basis for style guides, site maps and a content architecture.

The content delivered through the web channel will serve several different user types. These different target audiences and their motivations will need to be identified, as well as an understanding of their terminologies, graphic vocabularies and how they "view the world". The site and content can then be structured in such a way that the information is where the target users 'expect' the information to be.

It should be remembered that the 'information architecture' of the site (deciding where content exists) should not be taken forward without consideration of the online brand development and 'voice' of the site. Content, layout, site structure and 'voice' should all feel harmonious and consistent.

We typically meet the team that currently manages the site and identify the key stakeholders who will drive the brand messages. Using a site content audit as a starting point, we will be able to work together to see what content is required and then order and classify the hierarchies of information appropriately. This goes beyond a simple taxonomy and focuses on brand messages and functionality, enabling users to access and understand content without creating artificial barriers through misunderstandings.