A history ofWired websites

Back when the web was in its infancy

Our focus back then was educating businesses as to what this new marketing medium meant to their business and the opportunities and threats associated with it.

On the face of it this Interweb thing was the equivalent of a kid with ADHD, very disruptive.

The millennium, Y2K and the internet

The adoption by businesses was slower than we would have liked. Internet speeds being slow and inconsistent may have had something to do with it.

Armed with perseverance we set up Ventures to partner with businesses, helping them to develop their online strategy. This included CarsDirect and Liquor Now.

SmartAlec Content management system

It doesn’t look like Wired but it is. SmartAlec was a Content management system we built to make updating your website a painless experience. It was a early CMS, and one that was easy to use, unlike the majority that still required a knowledge of HTML.

SmartAlec was adopted by Pacific Brands, which was a multi million dollar Clothing and Footwear manufacturer, with brands like Bonds, KingGee and Hush Puppies. SmartAlec is still used by a handful of our customers.

User experience matters

The internet is here to stay and with it our focus is on making the user experience on the website as pleasurable as possible. For many users its still a novel experience to browse a website, so making it as easy and enjoyable as possible was central to our design approach. Our mantra was ”don’t make the user think”.

As part of our user experience drive we reviewed the websites of the NZX50 Companies. From this we created the “Best Investor Website Award (BIWA)” to recognise good website useability.

Sharing what we learned

From our focus on website user experience we thought that we should share our knowledge. We did this by writing a book.
We called it “Preparing for Take Off”.

Along with user experience we were building a lot of custom web applications to improve business processes. Some of these included Tax Refunds, Dunlop Loyalty Programme, Avalanche information management platform, ACC Refunds, Training systems, Uniform ordering systems

For eCommerce projects, our CMS of choice was Magento. In hindsight this was misguided as Magento adds complexity to the development and maintenance of sites, that doesn’t need to be there.

Custom development was our main focus

Developing complex web Applications using mainly ASP.net. Our development process was of an Agile nature before Agile became a household name in the Software development game. Agile has become the bossy big brother now and we question the overhead that it can add to a project.

Our development process is still Agile in nature, with a Discovery stage that allows us to pull up our sleeves and get a clear understanding of the businesses requirements and their expectations. This is accomplished through in-depth research of the market that our clients operate in and probably most importantly an interface design process that shapes the sites functionality.

Over 20 years old

You’d think that we’d stop behaving like teenagers and stay in one spot and focus on one Content Management System. In the eCommerce front we work with both WooCommerce and Magento platforms. WooCommerce steals our heart and Magento is given the heave ho.

We developed a Security and Support offering called Protect WordPress that is now bundled into our Hosting, along with several Support options.

We also developed a Guided selling system called Shop Assistant. This Guided selling system has proven to increase the conversion rates by over 113%. This is an invaluable tool in our website merchandising toolkit.

Over 23 years later, we are still here

It has been a long time since we started this journey. Most definitely older and wiser, and most definitely less tolerant of fads.

Now we focus on building websites on the WordPress and WooCommerce platform and custom development within these platforms, doing less and doing it better. Focusing on delivering cost effective outcomes to our clients.

We like to keep things simple, for everyone.