Prompt: You have been approached by your uncle, who has requested your help in developing a website for his small business. He has asked for a visually appealing website that will need to have tables, forms, as well as a variety of multimedia elements. You will create at least five pages in total, including a home page and an About page where you will explain the intent of the website, defend your aesthetic decisions, and explain your future plans for the site.

The intent of and purpose of this website was to help promote awareness of my "fictitious" uncles scrapyard and parts recycling business as well as streamline some of his current processes by automating many of the repetitive tasks associated with handling customer requests for parts.

To ensure the successful completion of these tasks a Home page was created to welcome visitors and promote the business to prospective clients.

A Search page was included as a portal for customers to search my uncle's inventory (and eventually be able to purchase parts directly online); thereby freeing up more time for existing employees to perform other tasks.

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) page was included to provide quick answers to the most commonly asked questions as well as free up more time for my uncle and his staff, allowing them to concentrate on his expansion initiative.

A Contact page was included to provide end consumers with my uncles basic contact information and address as well as allow them to quickly and easily submit general inquiries pertaining to my uncle's products & services.

Lastly, the About page was created to help document the design and development of this site and provide some justification for the decisions made throughout the process.

Global Design Choices

The overall appearance of the site incorporates a diamond plate background and is intended to appeal to the target audience of automotive repair shops and independent mechanics. The global grey color scheme was chosen to reduce user eye strain associated with bright contrasting colors and the corresponding serif fonts and white text background were chosen to enhance the user's usability and visibility of the site content. To enhance user navigation throughout the site, each page has been given its own title so that the current page being displayed will be shown in the browsers open tab text. Additional navigation features include an intuitive navigation bar that will grey out the navigation link background and link text for the page the user is currently on. These features ensure that the user will always be able to determine where they are within the site. The two most important links (Home & Search Parts) have been placed on the outer edges of the navigation menu as these are believed to be the most effective placement areas for user recognition and retention (The Serial Position Effect), while the least important page links have been placed in between.

Page Specific Design

Home: The Home page is the expected landing place for new and returning customers. It is intended to promote my uncle's business by demonstrating the benefits of using recycled parts and provide a brief background into the history of his business. The text for this section has been enlarged and bolded to enhance visibility and reduce the competition for the users attention with the media elements.

Contact: The Contact page is classified as a less important page because as it is one that a visitor would only navigate to after an initial interest in my uncle's business has been obtained. This page follows the "rule of thirds" guideline for placement of important information such as my uncle's address and contact information, Google map showing the relative location, and the integrated form used for sending electronic inquiries.

FAQ's: The FAQ's page is believed to be the least important page and one to receive the least amount of views. The questions and corresponding answers have been placed within a table to enhance the flow of information to the user and enhance readability. The questions text has been bolded to help users quickly identify the question they have among the list.

About: Similar to the FAQ page, the About page has been placed within a table as a way of easily structuring the key topics regarding the development and design of the site and the corresponding answers. The general category for each of the 3 sections being described have bolded font to draw the users attention to the 3 main categories being described and assist with the quick navigation to a particular area of the page. In each description certain keywords have been bolded to highlight the specific area of interest and inform the user of the significance of the surrounding description.

Search Parts: Perhaps the most critical component to the website is the Search Parts page. This page is of extreme importance because it is where the e-commerce function will eventually be located and it will have a significant impact on creating additional sales for my uncle. What at first seems to be a relatively simple drop down list form is actually going to be a rather complex searching tool. The form will allow users to search for items by year, make, model, category, and part. The form is designed to be responsive to user input and will only display information that is relevant to the users need. This will eliminate unnecessary scrolling and reading, enhance usability, and increase customer satisfaction with the site. The lack of a SQL server database to query meant that the functionality of this section had to be simulated. Lastly, the compact form and relatively small amount of information being displayed is what influenced the centered location of the form.

Additional enhancements to the site would include the eventual inclusion of an e-commerce feature so that visitors to the site could obtain pricing of spare parts and purchase them directly online. This would significantly reduce the clerical duties associated with taking customer orders over the phone and would enhance user satisfaction. Given more time and resources, I would have tried to create a more visually appealing logo and I would have investigated alternative font and color schemes to enhance user perception of quality and further promote my uncle's brand and separate him from the competition. An additional feature that I would have liked to include is a DIY (Do It Yourself) page where the novice mechanic (or do-it-yourselfer) could navigate to and obtain industry tips and tricks for performing their own repairs. Catering to this other group of end consumers would carry the potential for increasing my uncles sales and promote his personal and professional brand.