To gain the award of Best in Class our performance had to surpass the standards of excellence that comprise the webs most professional work. The site was honoured specifically for excellence in the food and beverage industries. We managed to score an impressive 487 (out of 500) for the production of the website, with our scores for Feature Functionality and Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility being the particular highlights. A breakdown of the result is shown in the below table:

Our pride at winning this award was increased further by the revelation that we beat off strong competition for the award including the likes of Starbucks, Pepsi, Carte D’or, Waitrose and Magnum.

The achievement of this award signifies Cyber-Duck’s intentions to solidify their position as a leading Digital Agency and with every new award we receive come renewed vigour to ensure that our clients get best possible service.

The user feedback has so far been excellent with a first time buyer registering every 20 minutes – Hablib is already working towards its goal of allowing anyone in the U.K to buy, sell or rent homes at no cost.

Hablib.com brings together social media and property listings online. It offers an alternative to the usual property advertising offering; 0% estate agency fees on sales and 0% letting fees on rentals so that consumers can sell and rent properties online and free of charge.

Although designed to be extremely easy to use for all site visitors, behind the scenes the Hablib system is extremely complex. The site includes a wide variety of AJAX functionalities such as suggestive search, affiliate support, integrated payment gateways and APIs with other companies. Furthermore, all automated processes were designed to strictly adhere to the many regulatory requirements involved in offering property sales services.

The Managing Director of Hablib Anton Kreil, a high profile UK entrepreneur and star of the BBC’s TV show ‘Million Dollar Trader’ has said:

“From the outset it was clear that the user experience was a critical factor in realising my dreams for Hablib. My vision was to bring a fairer approach to the property market and I felt that Cyber-Duck were best placed to transform this vision into an online reality. Cyber-Duck have consistently guiding me through the inherently technical, regulatory and legal minefields that can surround a project of this nature and size. It’s been a great working relationship, and I’m delighted with the outcome”.

Read the official press here: http://ow.ly/1b63G

We have made our own private donation towards helping the survivors with essentials such as food, water and shelter and we hope that everyone else can do the same.

Haiti has one of the poorest capital cities in the world and many of the people living on the hillside shanty towns already had little to their name – now they have nothing and many have lost loved ones in the disaster.

Everyone who works at Cyber-Duck contributed to this donation and in our quest to become Europe’s leading digital agency we will educate other businesses and people by making regular and emergency donations to help communities around us.

If you wish to donate to the cause, you can do so on the World Jewish Relief website (http://www.wjr.org.uk/appeals/646-Haiti-Emergency-Earthquake-appeal). World Jewish Relief is Cyber-Duck’s nominated charity; they are the UK Jewish Community’s response to disasters and help those in need regardless of race, religion or nationality.

Boonspace, Cyber-Duck’s latest web development, is an exciting new service that allows users to send virtual emotional gifts along with personalised cards, photos, audio and video messages to loved ones. A cash sum can also be attached to each Boonspace gift and sent securely via the internet so the recipient can choose a real gift to go along with their virtual one.

The service is perfect for those that find themselves away from home and the people that are important to them for long stretches of time. Boonspace makes it possible for people such as servicemen and women, students studying abroad, travellers and ex-pats to send something meaningful to family and friends who are far away.

As part of a series of promotions to mark the imminent launch of the Boonspace website on December 10th, anyone who signs up to Boonspace for free by November 30th will be automatically entered into a prize draw to win a brand new 8G iPod Touch. All you need is a name and a valid email address and you could be receiving an early Christmas present.

To be in with a chance of winning, visit Boonspace and sign up before November 30th. Good Luck!

Find out more about Boonspace on YouTube.

Vinifera Boutique are dedicated to importing exclusive wines into the U.K from speciality French vineyards. U.K wine lovers will now be able to access new small batch wines that have not previously been available to them without travelling to France. New wines will be listed on a weekly basis: http://www.viniferaboutique.com

The Challenge
Vinifera wanted Cyber-Duck to come up with a high quality and easy to use website to exhibit their constantly evolving range of wines to everyone from wine aficionados to dinner party hosts. It had to feature an e-commerce shopping cart, live countdown for wine of the week and give users useful articles and advice.

The Solution
Cyber-Duck designed a traditional looking site featuring luxurious hand drawn graphics and a simple navigation system. As far as functionality is concerned, the site was made with integrated shopping cart software to allow Vinifera to edit and add new products. It also features a WordPress blog with a WYSIWYG interface which can easily be edited.  The website also has a function for people to sign up and receive exclusive offers and alerts by SMS.

The Result
Vinifera are starting out with a fantastic website on which to showcase their eagerly anticipated range of French wines. The next step is to implement the online marketing plan for the site. This will ensure that people can find the site easily in Google searches and from other sources such as Pay per Click advertising and affiliate networks.

Visit http://www.viniferaboutique.com to view this stunning website and to check out the luxury wines on offer.

The purpose of the presentation was to explain how an online marketing campaign for a website with little to no user experience planning is like simply throwing money away.

It explains our understanding of user experience (UX) design and optimisation, and how if implemented right, it could transform your business!

Editors were impressed by Cyber-Duck’s incredible achievement, picking up an International Communicator Award, a Horizon Media Award and an Interactive Media Award all within a month!

This is not the first time Cyber-Duck has been featured in the local press. In April, Managing Director Danny Bluestone gave an interview to the Borehamwood Times about the company’s continued success during the credit crunch.

Read the full write-up in the business news section of Hertfordshire Business Independent here.

Cyber-Duck has always prided itself on being a very sociable company and as such, we’ve joined the world of social networking!

Follow us now on Twitter by clicking here for all the latest news, developments and general office banter from the Cyber-Duck London web design studio.

Social networking via sites such as Twitter facilitates a two-way dialogue between Cyber-Duck and its audience in their chosen environment, allowing us to listen to and learn from their comments and feedback whilst offering them an insight into the way we work.

Cyber-Duck believes this open and transparent dynamic is crucial in building lasting and successful relationships with our clients and counterparts in the digital media industry.

The accreditation comes in the wake of Cyber-Duck’s iPhone App development for a leading provider of emerging economies financial reports and data. The App was developed for their management staff to run their business on-the-go.

The new mobile application allows Cyber-Duck’s client a scaled down version of their website’s back-end functionalities. Management can access the website’s database via their iPhone, allowing them to track client activities, update the internal CRM system and record and send new meeting notes as soon as a meeting has finished.

The App was rigourously tested via focus groups to ensure maximum ease and usability.

With full accreditation from Apple, Cyber-Duck can move on to developing mainstream Apps in the future, available for everyone to buy via the iPhone Apps Store. Cyber-Duck will also be designing more client-specific Apps that will help make them more effective in managing their business too.

Contact Cyber-Duck today to enquire about our Apple solutions.

The Design Business Association (DBA) is the trade association for the UK design industry and helps design consultancies become more professional and profitable.

The DBA was initially created to promote professional excellence through productive partnerships between commerce and the design industry to champion effective design which improves the quality of people’s lives.

The DBA ethos, which has effective design communication at its heart, is completely in line with Cyber-Duck’s own company mantra that every interaction should have a purpose.

Cyber-Duck is proud to be associated with the DBA thanks to its impressive standing within the UK design community and its ongoing commitment to demonstrating the benefit of effective design as an integral part of the essential business mix.

For more information on the DBA, visit DBA Online.