Research Project

How does the design and accessibility of e-commerce websites encourage people to shop online?

I will start by introducing the topic and giving a brief outline and background information into ecommerce and online shopping. During the esssay I will look at analysing individual features of the websites, showing what is effective throughout different sites and through research and surveys, I will see what could be improved. Features such as the Navigation, Search functions, Images etc.

I will also look at how these websites are designed to promote the sales of certain items through advertising and marketing, as well as investigating how the websites themselves are promoted through advertising.

Other things that I will look at, are those specific to ecommerce sites, such as customer product reviews, and evaluating how reliable these are and whether people take notice of them. Also, the 'try before you buy' functions, which enable the user to either listen to a preview of a piece of music, or look through the first few pages of a book and how this compares to actually being in a shop and doing this. Also, the feature that shows a viewer potential items that they might like, related to what they have previously bought.

Overall I will be looking at how effective the design and accessibility is, and whether this makes online shopping a more pleasant experience for the user.

As well as any information that I will find on the internet as I am doing the project, this is a list of books that I will use. .

Webworks: e-Commerce (Web Works) - Katherine Carlton

Roger C.Parker's Guide to Web Content and Design - Roger C. Parker

Web Design: E-commerce (Icons Series) - Julius Wiedemann

Over the next week, I will attempt to plan and start writing my project, as well as starting the next context project.

Simulated Client Design Report.

Initially, I set out to design a 6 or 7 page website to outline the things that could be bought to help the NTU Alumni Cancer Research fund. I wanted it to be a microsite that would be used separately to the current website, mainly focussed on current students or recent graduates encouraging them to give money to the fund.

I wanted it to be a visually striking site, that got straight to the point with minimal, or no images that distracted the user. To do this, the website would have to focus on the design, colours and typography to make it an eye catching website that would entice the viewer.

One of the main focal points that is obvious throughout the website is the 'GIVE NOW' link. This is because this is the main aim of the product and having this visible throughout would encourage more visitors to click on it than if the link was hidden right at the end and they had to look through the whole site before coming to it.

The colours I have used on each individual page, I wanted to be vivid, however not so much that it clashes with the other colours on the site and I think that the ones I have used work quite well.

Overall I am pleased with the website I have made and I think the introduction of media queries so that the site works well on lower resolutions works well and if the timescale had been larger I would want to use this so that it works on mobile devices aswell. Another thing I would look at doing given more time; that would be to create a sliding jQuery transition between pages, this would give the site a sense of interactivity that is maybe missing, however this could take attention away from the information on the page.

Testing with Media Queries

So, having finished my client site, I thought i'd have a play round with media queries as I had never tried to incorporate it into my designs before. My site encountered a problem when it got to a certain size in which the 'Where does your money go' heading got in the way of the nav, causing everything to move.

I thought about changing all the font sizes, however this would have been a lot of hassle and the simplest way of correcting the error was to remove the header altogether, just leaving the nav. By doing this, the site still functions and it doesn't feel as if anything is missing.

I also made it so, when the screen gets to 600px wide, the width of the content on the homepage also decreases.

As a result my site works down to resolutions of about 500px wide and if the time scale of the project was slightly longer I would attempt to create a version that would work on mobile devices, however I believe this would be too much work given that there's only 2 days left and I don't want to mess up the whole site by trying this. Overall, I am very pleased with what I have produced as I have included Media Queries which is something that I haven't used before.

Here are the screenshots of the site at certain sizes. .

Wireframes - bit late

Here's the wireframes I meant to upload a while ago for the 2 mock-ups i made.

Context 3

1,200 words down, 800 to go. . if only I could think of something else to write about.

Simulated Client Project Progress

Couple of screenshots from my NTU Cancer Research site. Very nearly finished coding it all now, then just to work backwards and do the proposal and then move on to the Context 3 project, which I have quite a good idea of what I will write about now. .

2 ideas for Simulated Client Project

Here are 2 ideas, both aimed to encourage people to give money to help aid cancer research within NTU.



This idea would be a one page website that scrolls down giving more information and consisting of 3 different sections.



This site would consist of a few pages, each explaining the different things that your money can be put towards with a 'Give Now' link at the top no matter which page you're on. This is probably the more effective design as it would mean the user wouldn't have to scroll all the way down, which could be quite a bore. They could just skip between pages depending what they wanted to look at.

Portfolio + Client Idea

I have now finished my portfolio and have put it up live. There are a few bits that still need touching up, but I am generally happy with it now.

http://www.amitchelldesign.com

For the initial client project, I think I am going to create a one page, advertising/marketing campaign for supporting the NTU Alumni, giving more information on how to help out and explaining what can be done with your support.

Back at Uni

So, after 2 days back at uni, I have found out that we have 2 projects in for the end of October, an essay and a practice client project. As well as many other projects over the course of the year. All seems a bit overwhelming at the minute; definitely chose a bad time to redo my Portfolio. Anyway, I hope to get that finished tomorrow and then move on to thinking about the other projects.