Experienced web development services company
We are an ISO 27001 certified web development company providing full service web application development for over 25 years and serving a wide range of both commercial, non-profit and government clients across a wide range of industries.
Whether you have an existing application in need of support or redevelopment, a set of spreadsheets which have grown unwieldy, or simply an idea to improve your existing business processes our company can help.
Why choose us as your web development company?
We’ll help you scope your project
If you do have a set of requirements, we can help turn these into a web application but don’t worry if you don’t have a full specification for your project or if you aren’t sure of your exact needs. Many of our clients come to us with just a business problem which requires development or an existing system in need of replacement.
We’ll take the time to understand your requirements from both a business and a technical perspective and produce a high level or detailed project specification based on your requirements.
We work to ISO 27001 and industry standards for web development web application security
All web application development completed by OWA follows industry best practices with regards to the setup of our development processes, project testing and quality assurance, and support and maintenance of completed projects. OWA is an ISO 27001 certified web development company for Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. All of our development team also receive regular security training and all projects follow the OWASP ASVS web development application standards for secure development and have both automated and manual security testing prior to release.
Our development team is always available
As soon as we start development on your web application we’ll let you know which members of the team will be working on your project. You’ll be able to contact any of the designers, developers or your project manager directly.
We’ll fully test your project for bugs, errors and security issues
All our projects go through an extensive internal testing and quality assurance process to ensure all the required functionality is included, works across required platforms and is free from any errors which may affect functionality or the user experience.
We use a range of both automated and manual testing covering areas such as performance, accessibility, and security to detect any issues prior to production release.
We’ll work with your existing IT team or provider
If you already work with an existing web development agency, or have an internal team or department responsible for you website, email or other internal systems OWA can assist. Many web development projects need to integrate with existing authentication systems or internal APIs and require liaison with other teams or suppliers. We can provide API documentation, work to specifications provided by other developers or investigate existing solutions to ensure new development can be implemented quickly and efficiently.
We offer a full warranty on all our development
Our internal web application development processes allow us to be confident that the web applications we deliver meet the agreed specification and are free from bugs or other errors during development. This allows us to offer a full 12 month warranty on all newly developed web applications – should you experience any errors in your web application in the first year we will resolve these free of charge.
We’ll keep your web application secure
All web applications are at risk from hackers or other attackers, so it’s important not just that development is completed securely, but also that the underlying, servers, services and other components which make up the application are kept up to date. We offer monthly patch management services with our application development which ensures the application and its components are kept updated every month – or sooner for critical updates – to ensure there are no vulnerabilities discovered in the application which might be exploited by an attacker.
We’ll support you for the long term
We provide 24/7 support and protection as long as you continue to use your application which can be used to resolve queries, enhance the application and provide you with any other support you may need once development of your application is complete.
Our web application development process
Initially, one of our application development team will look to meet with you either physically or virtually to discuss your project in more detail. One of our web developers or technical consultants will attend, so we can pick up on any technical queries right from the start. During the meeting we’ll look to find out more about your project including the scope of work, any technical requirements, budgets and planned timelines. We’ll also ask about any existing solution and the underlying infrastructure and technologies if you have an application which might benefit from legacy system support or project recovery.
Once we have enough information about your web development project, we’ll put together a proposal for how we can deliver this for you. As a full service web development company, we can assist with the creation of a project specification and carry out the necessary scoping and discovery work before moving the project into design and development.
In addition to the technical development of your project, we can also provide all the other services needed such as domain name registration, fully managed UK-based hosting and ongoing project support and maintenance or work with your IT team or existing host should you have one.
How we design your web application
At OWA we specialise in designing and building user-centred applications that meet operational and stakeholder needs. On every project, our developers are involved from the outset – long before any code is written. This holistic approach to design and development ensures functional requirements – and technical constraints – are factored into the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design right from the start.
An emerging picture of your users and their intent underpins the wireframes we create, testing and refining layouts of the main screens in your application. The key steps, or user journeys, involved to complete important actions across these help us to affirm or amend positioning on the screen and define hierarchies of information, preparing the route for design and development.
With an approved framework and any accompanying information architecture (IA) work on content structure in place, the project moves into visual design and user testing – a stage where further insights and refinements follow. Important screens within the system are designed; branding, palette and typography are applied. The resulting design concepts take shape in a clickable prototype and are where UX and content structure come together in a series of user interfaces. Working with prototypes – whether as a minimum viable product (MVP), proof of concept (POC) or as part of a more linear project – allows your team space to iterate and minimises more time-consuming changes when your project enters actual development.
What type of web applications do we develop?
We specialise in the development of customised web applications which are designed to fit your exact business needs and provide flexibility you may not be able to achieve with an off the shelf solution.
This may involve integration with an existing database or internal API, development of specific workflows relevant to your business or industry, or working to specific security or industry standards regarding audit logging or data protection.
Some common categories of web applications we’ve developed include:
Customer relationship management (CRM) sytems
If you store customer, staff or membership information in an existing database or spreadsheets, and are finding managing or processing this information unwieldy, we can develop a CRM application front-end to your data allowing you to automate existing business processes, enabling users to update and manage their own information and reduce the workload on administrators.
Hospital management web applications
If you work with patient data, you may need to ensure additional precautions are taken to store and control access to private medical data which may require a customised solution. We can create an application which manages this data but also puts the correct safeguards in place relating to the access, handling, storage and security of patient data.
Grant management systems
If your organisation manages specialised applications e.g. for jobs, courses, grants or donations we can build a self service platform to guide applicants through the process to enter the exact information required and implement any workflow you require for processing submissions and handling offers rejections and other administration.
We can also design and develop websites, ecommerce platforms, online learning systems, ERP systems, customer portals, operational systems, web APIs or any system to meet the individual needs of your business.
What web development technologies do we work with?
We have experts in a wide variety of web technologies, but the majority of our application development is completed using one of the following languages or frameworks.
PHP web development
We use the Symfony Framework as a flexible and customisable base on which to build our applications. Sometimes paired with Drupal for content management projects, this framework allows us to quicky develop functional, secure and accessible web applications for a variety of uses.
Node.js web development
For web applications requiring large numbers of concurrent users, or real-time services we use the Node.js JavaScript runtime environment. This allows us to build scalable web applications which can respond to high levels of traffic quickly over short periods.
iOS and Android app development
We use hybrid technologies (Flutter, React native) to allow a single mobile apps to be developed for both iOS and Android rather than two independent apps allowing development time and cost to be significantly reduced.
You can learn more about our mobile app development services on our mobile app creation page.
We also support a range of legacy web development technologies including ColdFusion, ASP classic and can provide assistance in upgrading or redeveloping legacy applications if needed.
What web applications have we developed?
Some of our recent web application development projects include:
Health and safety SAAS web application development for the construction sector
A new client was looking to bring a paper-based process used in the construction sector online and asked us to develop a custom web application to allow building companies to trial, purchase, and use a SAAS (software as a service) system to comply with industry health and safety requirements. As a new concept, we worked closely with the client to determine the exact functionality and user experience for the system, and provided ongoing domain management, hosting and support for the project.
Read the full Health and safety SAAS web application case study
Redevelopment of management database web application for global non-profit
We worked with an existing client with a legacy database application developed some years ago by another agency. While functional, the client was looking to add additional functionality, implement new workflows, add integration with external APIs and update the design while keeping the underlying data source in the same format.
We used Symfony to quickly integrate with the existing database and rebuild a large number of key screens quickly with consistent functionality and quickly implement key areas of the system allowing more development time to be dedicated to implementing new functionality.
Read the full management database web application case study
You can view more web applications we’ve developed in the our work section.
Mark Fraser, director, Fraser PortraitsWe've been working with OWA since 2023, and I can absolutely recommend them.
