At its core, our craft is about two things: your Content, and creating an Interface for that content.

Your content is the reason your site exists.

The whole task of Web design is getting the users of your site to the content they need as efficiently and pleasantly as possible. As such our core philosophy is usability, or 'user-friendliness.'

Over my 24-year career, I have picked up a number of key principles that maximize usability:

  1. Don't make me think

    This is the sum and goal of usability-focused design. Our work is to minimize work for the user, to minimize thought, to seek to make every aspect of the site as immediately evident as possible. This is accomplished primarily through excellent information architecture, minimalistic graphic design, and a deep understanding of the relevant industry research, and specific testing of your site’s user base. The other principles flow from this principle.

  2. The Smallest Effective Difference

    A call to minimalism in design. A combination of Edward Tufte’s work in “Visual Explanations” and Dieter Ram’s 6th and 10th principles of design: “Good design is honest” and “Good design is as little design as possible.” Focus on the essential. Do not seek to manipulate the user or obfuscate what is really present. Do not burden the design with non-essentials. Design is as-subtle-as-possible, while still remaining effective.

  3. Follow Convention

    Because we are seeking to minimize, or when possible, negate, the learning curve involved with using your site, we should follow current Web design conventions to the degree that they help a user find what they need on your site. Note: because much Web design is done apart from research and usability-thinking, there are some “popular” Web design trends that are copied between many popular sites that do not actually serve this purpose. These should be avoided.

  4. Universal Usability

    Every user of your site should have full and unhindered access to every function of your site, regardless of what device, platform, technology, or assistive device they are using to browse it. W3C Web Standards exist to ensure that this is possible.

  5. Form Serves Function

    An old Shaker proverb that ought to be applied to the Web says “Do not make something unless it is both made necessary and useful, but if it is both necessary and useful, do not hesitate to make it beautiful.” This is the final principle on purpose, but an important one, and an important aspect of craftsmanship. In line with the above principles, we should also seek to make sites beautiful for our audience. These principles all lead us to focus on typography and relevant photography and videography as our primary design elements.

we've helped hundreds of organizations get this right

we can help you too.

Banner of Truth
White Horse Inn
For the Church
Challies
getty music
SBC
Elisabeth Elliot
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
Sola Media
Modern Reformation
The Village Church
Tenth Presbyterian Church
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
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We couldn’t be more pleased that God called and gifted Mere Agency to envision our dream and make it a tangible reality.

Kathy Reeg, President, The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation

Matt is a skilled Web strategist who has provided me invaluable assistance. His knowledge is both deep and wide. He looked at the wide range of products and strategies available to me and helped me narrow down to the few that would best fit my requirements

Tim Challies, Challies.com

We have been very pleased with the way Matt and the folks at Mere Agency were willing to help us work through and come up with an overall, comprehensive plan for our website.

Glenn Herr, Chinasource.org

The Mere team is simply remarkable. After working with them on a variety of projects, I’ve found them to be remarkably responsive, skilled, and effective in their work. They know what they’re doing and they’ll get it done for you.

James Kinnard, The Useful Group
Helping you use the web to impact the world with the gospel.