The Information Architecture (IA) service designs the user interface and associated functionality of a Web site or Web application, a desktop or mobile application, or a wired or wireless appliance.

Technically speaking, IA is the "functional mapping" between what users want to accomplish and the site's content and features, for the sake of quick and easy use by users. This mapping is expressed in high, medium, or low fidelity interactive prototypes of appropriate breadth and depth, and enumerated in the IA specifications to ensure traceability, validation, adequate technical detail, and easy comprehension for client stakeholders, visual designers, and programmers.

The IA typically includes the design of appropriate taxonomies, terminology, navigation, fields, buttons, wizards, menus, toolbars, layout, templates, and formats of all interactive content and functionality. Where possible, we use modern RIA technologies (generally, AJAX or Flash/Flex) to avoid the need for users to navigate laboriously page-by-page, in favor of direct, responsive, truly interactive user interfaces.

Throughout our IA work, we use a cutting-edge methodology that re-frames "usability" as communication quality, rather than the traditional, outdated, mechanistic, ad hoc approaches you will find elsewhere. We understand that a Web site is a form of communication as well as an automation platform for business processes and end-user satisfaction.

Furthermore, we're able to abstract the UI characteristics of any type of display device, computer, or communication instrument, making our IA uniquely flexible at designing high-quality mobile and small-device UI's, for iPhone, Blackberry, kiosks, and appliances.

Deliverables of IA include site maps, template wireframes, widget wireframes (re-usable sub-templates of widgets that perform an independent task, such as a search module), user-system interaction diagrams, interactive prototypes, specifications of all formatting, error handling, and interaction logic and behavior, inventories and repositories of content and data, and high-level specifications of external interfaces with which the Web site must interact.

The Interactive Design Team provides many of the services of a multimedia interactive design agency: online brand identity, graphic design, typography, photography, animation, and copywriting. Our designers can produce everything from traditional print graphics to Flash/Flex-based interactive movies and Rich Internet Application GUI's.

Design begins with ideas - creative concepts that drive both the message and the design. Every company has something very exciting and unique about its products or services, and outstanding design helps distinguish your business from others. We work to understand the essence of your business and translate it to the consumer in an effective, visually compelling way.

We discover the personality of your brand through a series of creative exercises. We'll quickly develop an understanding of your brand, products and services, and what makes them unique. We visualize this with you and build a framework of reference before we begin to create. Our design expertise also extends to logo design, branding, collateral and other media. Using our online and offline capabilities is an excellent way to tie your brand together, developing a global presence that matches your local one.

The iPhone has already proven to be a paradigm shifting technology. Not long ago, users of mobile phones expected a device that would allow them to make calls and perform online tasks in an environment sub-par to a traditional computing environment. Because of the iPhone, that's all changed. We are now at the forefront of a microcomputing revolution. As with the personal computing revolution of days past, graphical user interface design plays a major role.
 
Spire's iPhone App Design Team embraces the less-is-more ethos when creating graphical user interfaces for this device. We understand that the simpler it is for a user to accomplish his/her tasks, the better the application is. We also understand the frustration a user can experience from cluttered and poorly executed design. Subsequently, we focus on providing clean, meaningful interface designs that inspire audiences and keep them engaged and coming back for more.
 
When it comes to enterprise iPhone applications, the graphical user interface should be an extension of the company's corporate branding. Our talented visual designers will infuse that corporate branding into the look and feel of the iPhone application.  The result is a custom interface design that will resonate with its target user audience and allow an existing company to flourish in the mobile arena.
 
Regardless of the application, Spire's iPhone App Design Team will ensure that the application is usable, compelling, and beautiful.