Web Design Process
The Parachute Method
For 20+ years, we have refined how we build websites. The process below is the one we use today for every custom WordPress project at Parachute, from government sites to healthcare platforms to financial services portals. We have launched sites for SickKids Hospital, The Juno Awards, federal and provincial governments, and financial, legal, and healthcare clients across Canada, the US, Europe, and Australia. The process scales from startup level to fit an enterprise-level marketing site or a multi-portal membership build.
Brand Foundation
If your brand needs work before we design a site around it, this phase runs first. If your brand is solid, we skip it and start at Discovery. A website inherits the strength of the brand underneath it. If your logo, colour system, typography, or voice is dated, inconsistent, or missing, we fix it here so the rest of the project has a foundation to build on.
In this phase, we cover:
- Brand audit across your existing identity, tone of voice, and competitive positioning
- Logo design or refresh, delivered in every format your team will need
- Brand identity system: typography, colour (with accessibility-compliant contrast), iconography, and photography direction
- Written brand guidelines that your team, printers, and future vendors can reference
- Messaging foundation: positioning, value proposition, and brand voice.
We wrap up this phase with a complete identity system and messaging platform that feeds directly into the next six phases.
Discovery
Every project starts with understanding your business, your customers, and your commercial goals. Not your favourite colour. How you make money, who you compete with, and what your current site is or is not doing for you.
In this phase, we cover:
- Stakeholder kickoff and creative brief
- Analytics and Search Console review of your current site
- Competitive analysis across positioning, content, and technical performance
- Audience and user research
- Technical discovery: hosting, integrations (CRM, marketing automation, payment, ERP), and regulatory constraints (AODA, EAA, PHIPA, PCI).
We wrap up with a written summary, a baseline against which we will measure improvement, and a documented list of everything the new site must respect.
Strategy
Strategy turns Discovery into a plan. This is where every service gets scoped into the project, so nothing is bolted on later.
In this phase, we cover:
- Site architecture and site map
- UX wireframing for every unique page template
- SEO keyword research, topic clustering, and on-page planning
- AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO) planning for visibility in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini
- Core Web Vitals performance targets set before design begins
- Accessibility compliance scope: WCAG 2.2 AA baseline, plus AODA, Section 508, or EAA where applicable
- Conversion strategy and CRO benchmarks
- eCommerce and integration architecture, where applicable.
We finish Strategy with a complete blueprint: a sitemap, wireframes, an SEO and AEO/GEO plan, a performance budget, an accessibility target, and a conversion strategy.
Creative Design
The strategy defines what the site needs to do. Creative Design defines how it looks, sounds, and feels doing it.
In this phase, we cover:
- High-fidelity concept design for homepage and core interior pages
- Interactive prototyping in desktop and mobile, so you experience the design before a line of code is written
- Full design system expansion across every template, with reusable components
- Copywriting written for humans first, then optimized for SEO and AEO/GEO (optional)
- Accessibility design review against WCAG 2.2 AA before Build begins.
All feedback and revision history are captured in one place for future reference.
Build & Test
Build is where most agencies cut corners. It is also where performance, accessibility, and security are won or lost.
In this phase, we cover:
- Custom WordPress theme development. No page builders. Clean code, minimal plugin dependency, a CMS your team can actually use.
- CMS configuration with custom post types, fields, and editorial workflows tailored to your team
- Integration development: CRM, marketing automation, payment processors, membership platforms, and third-party APIs
- Performance engineering for Core Web Vitals, built in rather than retrofitted
- Accessibility implementation and testing against WCAG 2.2 AA
- Security hardening across WordPress core, plugins, database, login, and firewall
- Schema markup to support traditional SEO and AEO/GEO visibility
- Private staging environment for your team to load content and test every flow
- Pre-launch QA checklist covering performance, accessibility, cross-browser, responsiveness, forms, analytics, and legal compliance.
We complete the Build phase with a fully functional, tested website ready for our launch sequence.
Launch
Launch day at Parachute starts before sunrise, during off-peak hours, so we have runway to catch anything unexpected before your audience sees the new site.
In this phase, we cover:
- CMS training for your marketing team, covering content updates, media, SEO, AEO/GEO, and accessibility authoring
- Production deploy from staging: database, media, and environment configuration
- 301 redirect strategy. We audit every legacy URL from your existing site, Google Search Console, and server logs, then map each to its new destination. This preserves your search equity, protects rankings, and ensures no visitor, link, or citation lands on a broken page.
- DNS cutover
- Live QA on the production environment: performance validation, accessibility scan, form submissions, analytics firing, schema validation, and security scan
- Search Console and Analytics setup, including sitemap submission and conversion tracking
- Monitoring activation for uptime, real user performance, and security.
You launch with a live, monitored, fully redirected website and your team trained to run it.
Manage & Grow
Launch is the starting line for the data we use to improve your site for as long as we work together.
60-day aftercare, included with every project:
Performance monitoring, accessibility scans, security and malware monitoring, WordPress core and plugin updates, uptime alerts, and a formal Analytics and Search Console review at day 30 and day 60, measured against your Discovery baseline.
Ongoing services available after aftercare:
- WordPress website maintenance plans (tiered)
- Core Web Vitals performance retainers
- SEO retainers
- AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO) retainers
- Accessibility compliance retainers, including ongoing EAA conformance for clients selling into the EU
- Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
- Content strategy.
Every client we have launched in 20+ years works with the same team of designers, developers, and strategists who built their site. No account manager handoff. No junior team inheriting your project.
Let's build something that lasts.
Take a minute to tell us about your project. We will review, scope, and come back with a written estimate and a recommended approach.
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