User-centric, simple, intuitive, results driven.
Take a select group of the industry’s top web designers, developers and leaders, align their respective digital powers into one streamlined entity, and you get 404 Labs. Decades of collective knowledge and skill, laser focused on one goal; the development of your rock solid, secure, beautifully designed web site or application.
404 Labs design services comprise the full spectrum of components needed to make your next web project or app capture the imagination of its users. Our mission is to create the most satisfying user experience, with a laser-focus on goal conversion and raising your brand’s credibility through stunning visual design and intuitive interfaces.
As a design shop, 404 Labs adheres to the following principles:
Research First
Before placing the cursor on the artboard, we need to understand our intended audience. User experience research helps us get to know our users and design solutions with them in mind.
Don't Make Them Think
While following best practice user experience design, we adhere to the old adage that “simple is best.” We strive for simplicity, designing intuitive user interfaces that focuses the user’s attention.
Design For All
We believe that the web is for everyone. Whether designing the next app targeting Gen Z or a website servicing the needs of baby boomers, accessibility and readability is always top-of-mind.
Search Engine Optimized
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your site is, if your users can’t find it, it might as well not exist. 404 Labs strives to balance design and search engine optimization best practices.
Device Flexible
Responsive design? Mobile first? We prefer device flexible. Whatever you want to call it, our goal is to deliver a design and user experience that feels like it was designed specific to whatever device the next visitor is using.
Iterative Testing
From wireframe to prototype to launch, we focus on continuously testing our design and making adjustments where it improves the overall user experience. Alongside our research first philosophy, iterative testing helps us to best meet the needs of your users.
“PHP – Yeah, you know me.”
— PHPaughty by PHPature
404 Labs development services span simple WordPress development to complex, enterprise-class applications. Our mission is to build fast, cost efficient and secure web applications that help you to realize your business goals. We bring our experience and passion to bear on your behalf.
As a development shop, 404 Labs adheres to the following principles:
Keep It Simple
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” - Albert Einstein
Build for Need
A common principle of modern web development, we adhere to the YAGNI principle, or “you ain’t gonna need it.” We don’t build things just because we think we might need it down the road, we only build things we know we need.
Open Source Preferred
Whenever a proven open source solution exists to a problem, we favor it. Doing so allows us to shorten development time and maintain a proper set of development conventions, important in maintaining an application long-term.
Crawl > Walk > Run
Training for a marathon doesn’t involve running 26.2 miles a day leading up to a race. Similarly, building a great application doesn’t necessitate pumping out code to deliver features day in and day out. Our goal is to make it work, make it better, then make it great using an iterative development process.
Current & Forward Facing
All applications have an end-of-life. Our goal is to use modern, proven best practices and technologies to extend and future-proof the life of your project to the greatest extent possible.
Avoid Dependencies
Our goal is to develop features as independently as possible, separating concerns and decoupling useful functionality. Imagine a world where socks were part of the shoe. Yeah. We like to avoid things like that.
Leave It Better than You Found It
Over the course of a project, we find ourselves constantly needing to revisit solutions we’ve coded in the past. If we can’t make it better than it already is, we leave it alone. We’re looking at you, Carl.
Test Early, Test Often
Features should be tested thoroughly as soon as they’re ready. Ideally, they should be tested again with future deployments to check for regression. Our goal is to find defects before your users do.
Document Everything
Have you ever inherited a web app developed by another developer and been asked to fix it, only to find that there isn’t any documentation? We have. It ain’t fun. Our goal is to provide detailed documentation so that your application can outlive us all.
A few things you could find on our tool belt.
404 Labs provides cloud, digital architecture, and engineering solutions designed to ensure your application is effectively delivered to users. Our goal is to use the latest offerings from providers like AWS to deliver high-efficiency, high-availability solutions. Security. Stability. Scalability. The three pillars of our cloud services.
As a cloud services consultant, 404 Labs adheres to the following principles:
Security
Security is important to everyone, especially once a problem has been identified. Every decision we make is guided by security best practices to minimize your risk.
Scalability
Modern cloud solution providers offer the tools to make scalability accessible to every application. We leverage these tools to make your application highly adaptable to changes in demand and light on the wallet.
Stability
Today’s users expect web applications to be available 24/7 with no gaps in performance. High-availability and high-performance are a key consideration of our architecture design process.
Simplicity
Over-engineering an application’s architecture is a tempting proposition given today’s demand for a high-availability, high-performance solution. Our goal is to design the simplest architecture possible to meet your requirements and the needs of your users.
Cost efficiency
Our goal is to deliver cost efficiency to you by adhering to all our other principles. We’d much rather spend your money on application development than third-party cloud services ;-)
Recoverable
With the solutions available from today’s cloud service providers, there is no excuse for losing information. Our goal is to scale a disaster recovery plan that works for your business.
Auditable
One of the worst feelings in the world is to know that there is a problem and not be able to figure out why there is a problem. Our goal is to leave a trail of information so detailed that even Scooby-Doo can follow it.
“If you don't like the way the Atlanta Braves are playing then you don't like baseball.”
— Chuck Tanner