In today's digital age, it is almost impossible to run a business or establish a personal brand without a website. When it comes to launching your own website, you might find yourself having to choose between a bespoke website and a website created from a template. Both options have their own unique set of benefits, and the choice ultimately comes down to what works best for you and your specific needs.

Let's take a closer look at the benefits of each option:

Bespoke web development involves hiring a professional web developer to create a website specifically tailored to your needs. The benefits of this are:

With bespoke web development, you have complete control over the design and functionality of your website. You can create a unique and personalised website that accurately reflects your brand.

A bespoke website is built with scalability in mind, allowing for future growth and expansion as your business grows.

Bespoke web development can seamlessly integrate with third-party software or tools that are crucial to your business operations.

Using website templates is a popular option for those who want to build a website more quickly and easily. Here are some of the benefits of using templates:

Using website templates is often significantly cheaper than bespoke web development, making it a great option for those on a budget.

Website made from templates are often pre-designed, making them user-friendly and straightforward to update.

Using website templates allows for a website to be produced in a shorter timeframe, as pre-built components save time on hard-coding bespoke designs.

The option you choose depends on your individual needs and preferences. If you need a complex website with custom functionality, bespoke web development is the way to go. If you need a simple website quickly and affordably, using templates may be the best option.

It’s important to note that while using templates is affordable and easy, they have limitations in terms of design, functionality, and scalability. Additionally, the templates provided by website builders can be limiting in terms of originality and creativity.

You won’t get the same results with a page builder such as Wix or Squarespace, but an experienced web developer who is well-versed with a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress will be able to produce a perfectly functioning brochure site by adapting an existing template, if your requirements aren’t too complex. This has the added bonus of content editors being able to easily update the content, without having to edit or access the website’s code.

At the end of the day, what matters most is that you have a website that accurately reflects your brand and meets your business needs. Whether you opt for bespoke web development or templates, the most important thing is that you have a website that you are proud of and that helps you achieve your goals.

Is it okay to use a template to build my website? The benefits of fully bespoke web development compared to using templates

At Polychromatic, we strongly believe that design elements which make a page accessible to all should be a given, not a selling point. We build all of our projects with every user at the forefront.

There are a good number of reasons why we think that accessibility should really be considered essential. Not only does it allow equal access and opportunities to all, but it also helps set the standard.

Sure, going below the minimum recommended font size may help the look of your design, but can everybody still enjoy it? If not, then is it really worth the sacrifice?

What’s more, accessibility is about enhancing the experience for everyone! If you design with accessibility in mind from the start, you’re bound to end up with a more inclusive outcome, and you’ll often find that accessibility-focused design is appreciated across the board.

How do I make my website more accessible?

Although we consider an accessible UI to be a priority, we also understand that this is a learning process, and that education is key to achieving this as a long-term goal. So, without further ado, here are some small changes that you can make to get you started:

1. Use semantic HTML: Use HTML tags that accurately describe the purpose of the content. This helps assistive technologies like screen readers understand the content and read it out loud to users.

2. Provide alt text for images: Images should always have alternative text (alt text) that describes the content of the image. This is essential for users who use screen readers or have images turned off.

3. Use proper colour contrast: Ensure that text and background colours have sufficient contrast to make the content easy to read for all users, including those with colour blindness.

4. Use descriptive link text: Use link text that accurately describes the content of the linked page. Avoid using generic text like "click here" or "read more."

5. Make sure forms are accessible: Forms should be easy to navigate and use. Add labels to form fields so users know what information to enter.

6. Provide captions and transcripts for audio and video: Provide captions and transcripts for audio and video content so users who are deaf or hard of hearing can still access the content.

7. Test your site's accessibility: Use accessibility tools and test your site with assistive technologies to make sure it is accessible to all users.

There are some really useful resources if you want to know more about making web pages accessible, from courses and activities centred around implementing the basics (like this exercise on freeCodeCamp), to the detailed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are aimed at those who are looking to meet a technical standard (They also provide an introductory course).

If you have any comments, additions or would just like to chat, feel free to reach out!

Accessibility Matters: Seven Easy Changes to Make Your Website More Accessible

At Polychromatic, we’re taking steps towards more sustainable web development. In an ever-more paperless world, it’s easy to forget that the digital alternatives we use are still consuming energy. 

As we embark on this journey, we’re learning more and more about what it means to build a sustainable, eco-friendly website.

Just because a website isn’t tangible as most other goods and services, doesn’t mean it has no carbon footprint! There are many ways you can structure your site to have less impact on the environment, for example:

This is a great practice to strive towards in your mission to reduce carbon emissions, as data centres are powered by electricity. If this electricity comes from fossil fuels, this is detrimental to the environment. 

As internet usage has rocketed, some companies have actually started ‘green hosting’ to reduce environmental impact. They offer servers powered by renewable energy sources such as wind power, which we think is pretty cool! 

Your website may even be ‘hosted green’ without you knowing, if your hosting service has already made the switch. You can run a check via the 

 and even get a cool badge to display on your page to show off your eco-friendly status!

Less code equals less processing power. This means that coding more efficiently can actively reduce the amount of energy required to load a page. 

As well as reducing CPU usage on the end user’s device, removing unnecessary and long-winded code has an added bonus: it's also much easier to read for anyone else working on your project!

You can actually calculate your website’s carbon footprint using the 

SEO (search engine optimisation) is vital for brand visibility and lead generation. When users search for a term, search engines crawl the internet for relevant websites. 

As the name suggests, best SEO practices mean that your site is fully 'optimised' for this process (appearing closer to the top of the list),  but did you know that effective SEO also contributes to sustainable web design? 

The longer your users spend searching, the more energy is used. So, helping them to reach information quickly results in a more eco-friendly experience.

Your first thought about web design might be that everything has to be high definition. In practice, however, it’s worth considering the impact that high quality visual assets have on page loading times, bandwidth and ultimately the environment.

Formats such as .webp drastically reduce the size of a file, meaning that there is a smaller amount of data to store, and less to load. It's beneficial to use good quality images to keep things looking professional, but they don’t need to be 4K – it’s all about the balance. It's okay to be prudent with your pixels.

We checked this article’s banner image to compare the size difference between formats, and the results may surprise you!

Table showing the file sizes of the same image, when converted into various formats

As well as regular audits to remove obsolete and outdated content, it’s important to include the optimal amount of information on your pages. Try to be concise where necessary in your design process, but explicit where it’s warranted. 

You don’t want users lingering over content for longer than they need to (after all, this could also cause them to lose interest!). Nor do you want them having to fill in the gaps by conducting another search because they couldn’t find all of the information they needed! It all comes back to balancing out your user’s needs with energy consumption for maximum efficiency.

It's very hard to proof your own work, so we like to use tools like 

 to help us see the bigger picture when we’re writing content. Highlighting areas where the copy is a little over-complicated can really help to reduce waffle and improve readability of your text.

There are lots of things you can do to reduce your project’s footprint, and we think these are a great place to start!

You might have noticed that a lot of these steps go hand-in-hand with improving the user’s experience in general. For example, streamlined code and more efficient file formats lead to faster loading speeds, meaning that the end user isn’t kept waiting. 

Good SEO practices make for less searching, scrolling and sifting, whilst business owners generate crucial leads. With so many advantages to a more sustainable approach, it really is a win-win situation.

Polychromatic

Web Design | Didsbury, Manchester